Polk County news-gazette. (Benton, Tenn.) 190?-191?, 1913-07-24
CHAPTER XXI.
The Stairway of Silver.

Inc stairway OF silver.
The stiffness of the moment that
followed was tense; then thickly the
young man answered something ir-
relevant about clown, bottle and a
loaf; with cap drawn down and half
averted face, he lurched little for
ward in the darkness, and the senti-
nels weapon fell. ooh, that's you. is
it, Henri?" he said in different tone,
stepping back. How did you leave
the fellow?"
Eating the bread and calling for
more!" AS he spoke, the other
stopped, swaying uncertainty; above
the arch, the wick, ill-trimmed, bright
ened and darkened to the drafts.o air
through break and slit of the old
lamp; and briefly he awaited favor
able moment, when the flame blew out
until almost extinguished; then with
hand near sword-hilt, somewhat over
briskly, but in keeping with the part,
he stepped toward the arch; through
it, and quickly past the sentinel.
you seem to have been feasting
and drinking little yourself, tonight,
comrade?" called out the latter after
him. Il noticed it when you went in,
and But aren't you taking the
wrong way?" AS the other, after start
ing toward the barracks, Strengthened,
and then abruptly wheeled into the
road, running up the Mount.
"Bah!" A moment the young man
passed. Cant a soldier" articulating
with difficulty, go to see his sweet
heart without"
"Eh bien!" The sentinel shrugged
his shoulders. 1T isn't my business.
think, though, I know where they'll
put you tomorrow, when they find cut
through the guard at the barracks"
To this ominous threat the other
deigned no response, only, after the
fashion of a man headstrong In inso-
briefly, as we'll as in affairs Of gal
lantry, continued his upward way; at
first, speedily afterward, when be-
yond hearing of the man below, with
more stealth and as little noise as pos
sible, until the road, taking a sudden
angle, brought him abruptly to an
open space at the foot of great fight
of stone stairs.
Broad, wide, broken by occasional
platforms, these steps, reaching up
ward In gradual ascent, had designed
ly, in days gone by, been made easy
for broken-down monarchs or corpu-
lent abbots. Also they had been
planned to satisfy the discerning eye,
Jealous of every addition or alteration
at the Mount My lord, the ancient
potentate, leisurely ascending in &C.
clesiastical gown, while conscious of
an earthly power reaching even into
England, could still fancy he was go
ing up Jacobs ladder into realms SUI
pernal. Saint Louis, with gaze be-
nienly bent toward the aerial escalier
de dentelle of the chapel to the left,
might well exclaim no royal road could
compare with this inspiring and holy
way; nor is 1t difficult to understand
a sudden enchantment here, or be-
vond. that drew to the rock on three
pilgrimages that other Louis, more sim
ner than saint, the eleventh OF his
name to mount the throne of France.
But those stones, worn in the past
by the footsteps of the illustrious and
the lowly, were deserted now, and. for
the moment, only the moon, which had
escaped from the cloud, exercised
there the right of way; looking square
ly down to efface times marks and
nave with silver from top to bottom
the flight of stairs. 1t played, too, on
facades. towers and battlements on
either side, and, at the spectacle-the
disk directly before him-the Black
Seigneur, about to leave the dark and
sheltering byway, involuntarily paused
Angels might walk unseen up ana
down In that effulgence, as, indeed
the old monks stoutly averred was