The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1909-03-25

 THE LADY OF THE HEAVENS.
N

Ii!IIIIIIIIIIIIiIIIIIiiIl Ili!lIIiIIII!I N with fear
 Thou Hest" he screamed after her
 thy power is gore with thy tree."
 Scarcely were the words out of his
 mouth when they heard a crash which
 caused them to look round. A bough. | broken by the storm, had fallen from
 on high. It had fallen on to the head
 of the dwarf. and there he lay crushed | and dead.
 "Ah!' piped the other dwarfs. point | ing towards the corpse with their fng- | CTS. and closing their eyes to shut out
 the sight of blood. "ahl Nya is right.
 she still has power. Those who would
 kill her must wait till her tree dies.'' Taking no heed of what had happen | ed, Nya walked on into the forest. For
 a while Rachel noted the little huts | built, each of them. at the foot of a
 tree. There were hundreds of these | huts that they could see, showing that
 the people were many. but by degrees | they grew fewer, only one was visible | here and there, set beneath some parti-
 At last they ceased altogether; they | had passed through that city, the | strangest city in the world. l Trees-everywhere trees, hundreds of
 trees, tens of thousands of trees soar | ing up to heaven. making a. canopy of their interlacing boughs, shutting out | the light that beneath them was a deep oppressive gloom. There was sil- euCe 5lSO, TOT IT any DSdSCS OT DlToS | dwelt chere the hurricane had scared them away, silence. only broken from time to time by the crash of some giant of the forest, that, it's length of | ruin, to be buried in tomb of brush wood whence in due course it's sue cessor would arise.
 Another life gone,'' said the old woman, Nya, fitting before them like
 a little grey ghost, every time that this weird sound struck upon their ears; whose was it, I woHer? I will look
 in my bowl I will look in my bowl"
 For,as Rachel discovered afterwards,
 these people believed that the spirit of
 each tree of the forest is attached to
 the spirit of a human being, although
 that being may dwell in other lands,
 far away, which dies when the tree
 dies, sometimes slowly by disease, and
 sometimes in swift collapse. so that they pass together into the world of
 ghosts.
 On they fitted through the gloom, on for a mile after mile. Although the leaf-strewn ground showed no traces of it, evidently they were following some kind of path. for no fallen trunks
 barred their progress: nor nor were there here to right and left of them all these could be seen in plenty. At last, quite of a sudden, for the bole of a tree at the path had hidden it from them, they came upon a clearing in the forest. It seemed to be natural, or, at any rate, a very ancient clearing. since in it no stumps were visible. nor any scrub, or creepers, only tall grass and towering plants. In the centre of this place. covering a quarter of it. perhaps. was vast circular wall, fifty feet or more in height, and clothed with ferns. This wall. they noted. was built of huge blocks of stone. so huge indeed that it seemed wonderful that they could have been moved by human be- ings. At the sight of that marvellous wall. Rachel and Noie halted involun- tarily. and Noie asked,
 ''Who made it. Mother?"
 ''The giants who ived when the world vas young. Can our hands lift such stones?" Nya answered, as bend ing down, she thrust the top shoot from her fallen tree into the humid soil. then added: "On, child, there is danger here."
 As she spoke something hissed through the air just above her head, and stuck fast in the bark of a sap ling. Noie sprang forward and puck ed it out. It was a littlesreed, feather ed with grasses. and having a sharp ivory point, smeared with some green substance
 Touch it not" cried Nya. "it is deadly poison. Eddo's work, Esddo's work, but my hour is not vet. Into the open before another comes-"
 So they ran forward, all three of them, seeing and hearing nothing of the shooter of the arrow. As they aD- preached the titanic wall they saw that | it enclosed a mound, on the top of | which mound grew a cedar-like tree with branches so wide that they seem ed to overshadow half of the enclosure. 1 There were nQ gates to this wall. but l while they wondered how it could be | entered, Nya led them to a kind of l cleft in it's stones. not more than two | feet in width, across which cleft were stretched strings of Dlaited glass. She | pressed herself against them, breaking | f1aar1 ral rod for or-d fn11 ad bU Rachel and Noie. Suddenly they heard | a noise above them and looking up, saw white-robed dwarfS perched upon | the stones of the cleft, holding bent | bows in their hands, whereof the ar rows were pointed at their breasts. | Nya halted beckoning to them, where on. recognising her, they dropped the | arrows into the little uuivers which | Rachel could not see.
 These are the guardians of the Tenn pie that cannot either speak or hear, who were summoned by the breaking of the thread,'' said Nya, and went forward again.
 Now to the right, and now to the left. ran the narrow path that wound it's way in the thickness of the mighty them that they walked almost in dark ness. and at each turn of it were re- ceSses, and above these projecting | stones, where archers could stand for it's defence. At length this path ended in a cul-de-sac, for in front of them was nothing but blank masonry. Whilst Rachel and Noie stared at it wonder ing whither they should go now, a large stone in this wall turned. leaving a narrow doorway. through which they passed wherecn it shut again behind them, though by what machinery they could not see
 Thus they passed through the wall, emerging however. at a different point in it's circumference to that at which they had entered In the centre of the enclosure rose the hill of earth that they had seen from without, which evidently was kept free from weeds and swept and on it's crest grew the huge cedar-Iike tree, the Tree of the Tribe. Between the base of this hill and the foot of the wall was a wide ring of level ground, also swept and |, weeded, ana on this space. neatly ar ranged in lines. were hundreds of little hillocks that resembled ant-heaps.