Los Angeles herald., 1910-07-17
july II, 1910.


The lieutenant stared at him. Gill
forth meditated that the moonbeams
played very unbecomingly upon his
friends face. The man was wan and
haggard.
ITS hell-this country!" burst out
Carthew at last. "a HE'LL"
Gilforth nodded, and shrugged his
shoulders.
"Who's to contradict them?"
II contradict them!" blared Carthew.
"As If every instinct in ones body
didn't give them the lie They slaugh-
tered-they burned-they looted, and
God knows how can prove It'll"
Instincts are-instincts," deprecated
Gilforth. Lets be judicial"
The lieutenant menaced the village
with his fist.
II knew the second marin here!" he
cried, passionately. school marin!
She was only a girl. I've known her
from a baby-a little tot dancing in
the sun! l guessed it-feared it-made
myself disbelieve it all the way up.
And now it's true-it's true. She came
here to teach this devils spawn-Mary
Fenning, whom I've known all my life
to be pulled down to God knows what
among these butchers in the night!'
Gilforth shuddered, and tried to erase
the picture which his imagination
painted.
And I'm to investigator" went on
Carthew I'm to avoid provocation-
to get at the facts while her murderers
grin! I'll make my commission waste
paper, but somebody shall hang! I'd
like to burn them-Td like to blind
every eye that saw her agony!"
Just passion is a contagious thing,
and Gilforth controlled himself to re-
member as much.
Take evidence in the morning." he
advised. "They won't all hang by one
lie together, and there'il be a loophole
to the truth yet. Sleep on it."
Carthew gaspod.
"Oh, you-you Englishmanl" he
snarled. sleep on it! Sleep!"
He wheeled round, and strode into his
tent. He flung down the flap in Gil
forth's face.
Round the camp fire the news pro-
duced silence where had been merri-
ment and a song. The men looked at
their rifies-looked at the gun-looked
lastly at the village, and swore be-
meath their breath. A girl of their own
blood, and-and they swore again.
They settled down one by one, still
swearing. They swore in their sleep.
Gilforth remained intensely awake.
His ceaseless league with Comedy had
dragged him into this expedition, and
now Comedy had fled and taken sleep
in her train. 1t was Tragedy which
was glaring into his widely-opened
eyes.
He tossed. Visions which were the kin
of nightmare 1oated before his imagi-
nation. The Grass hopelessness of Car
thews task was suddenly vivid to him.
He wondered how many men in these
islands-men with like passions-were
confronting just such problems in poig
nant, helpless rage.
He tried to localze his speculations
upon Malaguin-on the possibilities of
that 'loophole" of which he had SER
monized. He saw nothing but dead
barrier-as blank and staring as the
whitewashed walls of the chapel on the
HILL
And then a sudden reflection derailed
this train of thought with a JOLT He
started-a pulse of his imagination
stirred. The notion grew, fiickered,
and then flared, beacon-like, in his
brain. He got upon his feet, and slip
ped out into the darkness.
Bud, the nearest sentry, he passed
with few sylables of explanation. He
ran lightly up the slope. He reached
the chapel unchallenged. He passed
his hands upon the walls. He picked
at the whitewash. 1t crumbled under
his touch. He drove the points of his
fingers against it. A cone of plaster
fell bodily away.
He smote here and there-again-
and again. Other little knobs fell from
their seating in as many holes!
So that sudden, unprecedented in
stinct had led him to the truth. The
plaster was indeed fresh, and the walls
were bullet-pitted! No careless hand
nFs1 oh hn6