The Emmett index. [volume] (Emmett, Idaho) 1893-1925, 1915-10-21

In that shop, some stately and SLOW
as was becoming to their great age
other garrulous and hurried All these
told out the seconds in an intricate
chorus of tickings. Then the passage
of lads feet, heavily running on the
pavement, broke in upon these small
err voices and startled Markheim into
the consciousness Of his surroundings.
He looked around about him awfully.
The candle stood on the counter, it's
flame solemnly wagging in draught;
and by that inconsiderable movement,
the whole room was filled with noise
less hustle and kept heaving like a
sea; the tall shadows nodding, the
gross blots of darkness swelling and
dwindling as with respiration, the
faces of the portraits and the china
gods changing and wavering like
images in water. The inner door
stood ajar, and peered into that
| league of shadows with long slit
of daylight like pointing finger.
From these fear-stricken rovings,
Markheim's eyes returned to the body
Of his victim, where it lay both hump
ed and sprawling, incredibly small and
strangely meaner than life. In these
poor, misery clothes, in that ungainly
attitude, the dealer lay like so much
sawdust. Markheim had feared to see
it, and, lol it was nothing. And yet,
as he gazed, this bundle of old clothes
and pool of blood began to find elo-
quent voices. There it must lie; there
was none to work the cunning hinges !
or direct the miracle of locomotion-
there it must lie till it was found.
Found! ay, and then? Then would
this dead flesh lift up a cry that would
ring over England, and fill the world
with the echoes of pursuit. Ay, dead
or not, this was still the enemy "Time
was that when the brains were out"
he thought; and the first word struck
into his mind. Time, now that the deed
was mplished-time, which had
closed for the victim, had become in
slant and momentous for the slayer.
The thought was yet in his mind,
when, first one and then another, with
every variety of pace and voice-ore
deep as the bell from a cathedral tur-
ret, another ringing on its treble notes
the prelude of waltz--the clocks De-
gan to strike the hour of in the af-
ternoon.
The sudden outbreak of SO many
tongues in that dumb chamber stag
gered him. He began TO bestir himself,
going to and fro with the candle, be-
leaguered by moving shadows, and
startled to the soul by chance reflec-
tons. In many rich mirrors, some of
home designs, some from Venice or
he saw his face repeated
and repeated, as it were an army of
spies; his own eyes met and detected
him; and the sound of his own steps,
lightly as they fell, vexed the sur 8
quiet. And still as he con-
.inued to fill his pockets his mind
accused him, with sickening itera v
ion, of the thousand faults of his de a
sign. He should have chosen a more o
luiet hour, he should have prepared a
IN alibi; he should not have used a t
lnife; he should have been more eau q
ious, and only bound and gagged the a
lealer, and not killed him; he should Ii
lave been more bold, and killed the a
ervant also; he should have done all h
hings otherwise; poignant regrets, Il
weary, incessant toilings of the mind G
o change what was now useless, to
e the architect of the irrevocable W
ast. Meanwhile, and behind all this 0
ctivity, brute terrors, like the sour Sc
ying of rats in deserted attic, filled is
he more remote chambers of his re
rain with riot; the hand of the con- =,
table would fall heavy on his, Shout =,
er and his nerves would jerk like a Ia
ooked fish; or he beheld, in gallop re
1g defile, the dock, the prison, the
allows and the black coffin. ~
Terror of the people in the street ar
at down before his mind like a be- so
eging army. 1t was impossible, he W.
lought, but that some rumor of the M
.ruggle must have reached their ears
nd set on edge their curiosity. -,
But he was now so pulled about by is
ifferent alarms that, while one por- na
on of his mind was still alert and is
inning, another trembled on the su
rink of lunacy. One hallucination in =
took strong hold on his mr.
The neighbor hearkening wi
it'll white face beside his window, de
lie passerby arrested by horrible tn
irmise on the pavement-these could da
worst suspect, they could not know; vo
trough the brick walls and suffered WI
indows only sounds could penetrate. tb,
,it hare Iyithip +ba lo,,.o La