Atlanta Georgian. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1912-1939, 1912-08-22

dress of disgrace, the chains of punish
water-perhaps worse. He could not go
back. For the first time since the blight
had descended on his life, Rimington
faced the fact that there was one alter
native to going back. 50 far his life was
his own-to take up aagin or fling away
as burden too heavy to be borne.
He knew what was happening
every available man was out securing the
gulleys and plantations, guarding the
road and the bridges and the stations.
He knew how every able bodied inhab
liant of the district was converted into
a police spy by hope of the reward, the
price that is set on the -convicts head
Il must have been mad" he told him
self, mad to have put my head into such
a moose" Yet in his heart he knew that
1t was madness which, given the same
chance and the same odds tomorrow, he
would have been powerless to resist.
He watched the sun-it was his only
means of checking time; had 1t ever
moved so slowly westward? Would the
afternoon never come? And after the
afternoon the long hours OF semi-twlight.
He fell to grubbing up the frozen grass
and chewing it, but ii was dry hay be-
meath the rime of the frost.
Sleep came over him resistessly; sleep,
it was an enemy to be dreaded and
fought against madly as snow -drowsi-
ness; sleep. that became a temptation,
that assumed the guise of a hundred de-
sired things-that, when in sheer weak
ness he succumbed to it, head nodding
- l. ~, of ;4,.
shining veil and showed him a masque
of demons dancing a dance Of death,
plunged him as a central figure into a
phantasmagoria of horror from which he
would start awake, shivering still, with
the dews terror beating his brow.
SO crouching and doing and starting
awake in blind fear, he past the year-long
hours till night fell-night, when the fur
tive creatures of the earth steal forth and
move, hunt and prey.
And what could he expect of help or
solace from the darkness?
Slowly with aching limbs whose move
ment was a torment, Rimington rose and
limped on Instinctively he turned in the
opposite direction from the shoulder of
the land that, as he imagined, hid the
prison from him. He had no sense of
destination now. no formulated plan;
nothing but a blind hope of stumbling
against a place where he might shelter
from the intense cold and find food
Warmth and food-these were now the
imperative necessities for him, not safety
The Accumulation OF a Lie.
1t had danced before him for miles,
it seemed, a tantalizing will O. the wisp
Of red light, now cleaning across the
darkness like a watchful eye, now dis
appearing utterly; gradually, however,
it had been drawing nearer. II burst on
him suddenly, seen at a surprising near
ness now that he had mounted the ris-
ing ground at the top OF which he saw
the white gimmer of gate, the incur
tained window Of a cottage red lighted by
the lamp and play Of flames within.
The sight stirred Rimingtons blood,
set his feeble pulses a futter. His steps
quickened into a stealthy run He had
no idea what the hour was, nut he mag
ined II early evening. and 1t seemed
possible chance that the cottage might
be empty, It's tenant not yet returned
from the village OF the field AS he