Atlanta semi-weekly journal. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1898-1920, 1911-04-04

were married. Mrs. Graham was school,
mate of the presidents daughter.
night, an unwelcome task lay before her.
She was to visit the yacht-now, by
satiric freak of chance, legally her own!
to seal the private papers of the man
whose deed of gift might not now be
recalled.
AS she sat listening to the meaningless
reading and the signing of the wind
above the chapel roof Barbara's eyes
on the stained glass figure in the rose
window were full of a wistful loneli-
ness. If her father were only aive-if
he could be near her now! Uncon-
sciously her gaze strayed across the
hedges, to the gray roof of the old
temple where lived the eccentric solitary
to whom her thought insistently re-
CURED. In her trouble she longed to go
to him, with a longing the greater be-
cause it seemed fantastic and illogical.
She was startled by a sound outside
the single shrill, high scream of a horse
in some stable near at hand. 1t cut
through a pause in the service, sharp,
curdling, like cry of mortal fear. A
baby, near Barbara, awol1e and began TO
cry and the mother soothed it with
whispered murmurings.
| Suddenly there arose a strange rat
| fling, a grooming of timbers The bishop
ceased reading. People were rising TO
their feet. The building was shifting,
swaying, with a sickening upward vlbra-
ton, as though it were being trotted on
some Brobdingnagian knee. Barbara
felt a uualm like the first touch OF mai
de mer "Ji-shin! Ji-shin!" rose the
| cry, and there was rush for the open
| air In another moment she found her.
self out of doors with the frightened
crowd.
II was her first experience of earth
quake, and the terror had gripped her
bodily. The wet trees were wavering TO
and fro like gigantic fans, and dull
moan like an echo in subterranean
! cavern seemed to issue from the very
ground. A section of thing slid from
the chapel roof with a crash. Rather
severe that, for Tokyo" said the bishop
at her elbow, where he stod calmly
watch in hand almost two minutes
and vertical movement"
1.-TWO minutes!" she gasped. She had
| thought it 20.
The nauseating swing had ceased, but
in an instant, with a vicious wrench, II
tions," he said. 1T will all be over in
| AS The spoke, the air swelled with a
horrible. crunching grinding roar, like
the complaint of a million riven timbers
| Across the lane a sinister dust-cloud
sprang into the air like monstrous
hand with spread fingers. 1T is one
of the temples!' said the bishop. and
hurried with the rest, Barbara following
him.
The paved yard was filling with a
throng. Agitated priests and acolytes
ran hither and thither and slate-colored,
nuns with shaver heads and pale.
| frightened faces, peered through the
| bamboo lattices of the nunnery. The
newer temple faced the open space as
usua but across the hedged garden no
| ornate roof now thrust up its Tartar
gables. Instead was a huddle of wreck
age. upon which lay the huge roof,
crumpied and shattered like the frag-
ments of a gigantic mushroom From
| the tangle projected beam ends, coiled
about with painted monsters, and here
/ and there in the cluttered debris lay
| great images of unfamiliar deities. over
all hung a fine yellow dust, choking and
penetrating.
What was under those ruins? Bar
bara shivered. She was quite uncon-
scious of the mud and the pelting rain.
| The bishop drew her under the temple
porch, and they stood together watch
| ing the men now working with mat
| tocks, saws and with loose bars for
| levers, prying up a corner of the fallen
roof. 1t seemed an hour they had stood
| there, when a priest, bareheaded, his
robes caked with mud, came from the
clustering crowd. The bishop ques-
! toned him in japanese. Barbara
! guessed from his face what the priest
had answered! She waited quiveringly.
! Through the bishops mind swift
thoughts were passing. He knew by
| hearsay of the recluse-knew that he
| was not an Oriental. He had often
| seen the placard on the little gate:
| Maker of Buddhas." He had never
passed it without a pang. 1t seemed
satirical derison of the hottest ideal of
| the west-a type and sign of reversion,
| a sardonic mockery of the creed of
| Christ. He was a priest holding the
torch of the true light to this alien
| people, and here, a dark shadow across
| it's brightness, had stood this derisive
denial Yet now, perhaps, this man stood
| on the threshold of the hereafter-and
| he was a man of his own race
He turned to Barbara. wait here
| for me" he said. 81 am going in. L
will come back to you as soon as I
| can"
CHAPTER XLIII.