The Glasgow courier. [volume] (Glasgow, Mont.) 1913-current, 1915-09-24
xI,
HappjneSs7

had had to study the features of the
other since the strange miracle that
had separated them.
M found that sOlne subtle change
had taken place III his Nat-ul.
1t was she-of that there could be
no doubt, but yet there was that about
her which cast Il spell of r%everential
fear over him. She was infinitely finer
and more wonderful than he ever had
realized.
With the passing of the excitement
of the battle and the dance the strange
ecstasy which had held the girl in thrall
passed slowly away. The rhythm of
the dancing Of the savage black haired
giant had touched some cord within
her which awoke the long dormant in.
stincts of the primordial.
For the timA she had been carried
back a hundred thousand years to the
childhood of the human race. She had
not known for those brief instants VIC
toria Custer or the twentieth century
or its civilization, for they were yet a
thousand centuries in the future.
But now once more she saw through
the eyes Of generations of culture and
refinement. Before her was a print
tive man.
In his eyes was the fire Of a great
love that would not be denied. About
her wa the wild, fierce forest and the
cruel jungle. and behind all this, and
beyond. her vision wandered to the
world she had always known-the
world of cities and homes and gentle
folk.
She saw her father and her mother
and her friends. What would they
say?
Again she let her eyes rest upon the
man. 1t was with difficulty that she
restrained a desire to throw herself
upon his broad breast and weep out
her doubts and fears close to the beat
ing of his great heart and in the safety
Of those protecting arms.
But with the wish there rose again
the question, "What would they say?'
to hold her trembling and frightened
from him.
The man saw something of the girls
trouble in her eyes. but he partially
misinterpreted it. for he read fear of
himself where there was principally
self fear, and. because Of what he had
heard Curtiss say, he thought that he
saw contempt, too, for primitive peo-
pie are infinitely nor sensitive than
their more sophisticated brothers.
You do not love me. Nat-ul?" be
asked. Have the strangers turned
you against me? What one of them
could have fetched you the head Of
90, the man hunter?
"See!" He tapped the two great
tusks that hung from his loin cloth.
"Nu slew the mightiest Of the beasts
for Nat-ul-the head is buried in the
cave Of Oo-yet. now that ! come to
take you as my mate. ! see fear in
your eyes and something else which
W was there before. What is 1t.
Nat-ul? Have the strangers stolen
your love from Nu?"
The man spoke in a tongue so an
cient that in all the world there lived
no man who spoke or knew a word of
it, yet to Victoria Custer it vas as in
telligible as her own English. o did
it seem strange to her that she an
swered NJ in his own language.
my heart tells me that l am yours.
Nu," she said, but my Judgment and
my training warn me against the step
hat my heart prompts. I love you.
but l could not be happy to wander
half naked through the jungle for the
balance Of my life, and II l 90 with
you now, v e for a day. l may never
return to my people.
"Nor would you be happy in the life
that l lead. 1t would stifle and kill
you. l think l see now something Of
the miracle that has overwhelmed us.
To you 1t has been but a few days
since you left your Nat-ul to hunt down
the ferOciOus 90, but in reality count
less ages have rolled by.
by some strange freak Of fate you
have remained unchanged during all
these ages, until now you step forth
from your long sleep an unspoiled cave
man Of the stone age into the midst Of
the twentieth century. while l doubt
lSO0 nave O0Su WITH 0OU ESUOIu u tUUU.
sand times. merging from one incarna-
ton to another until in this We are
again united.
"Had You. too, died and been born
again during all these weary years no
gap Of ages would intervene between
10 now. and we should meet again
upon a common footing, a. do other
souls. and mate and die to be born
again to a e mating and a new life.
with its inevitable death.
"But you have defed the laws of life
and death-you have refused to die
and now that we meet again at last a
hundred thousand years lie between ID
AN unbridgeable gulf across which I
may not return and over which you
may not come other than by the same
route which I have followed-through
death and q new life thereafter"
Much that the girl said was beyond
! Nus comprehension and the most Of 1t
| without the scope Of his primitive Ian