Evening capital and Maryland gazette. (Annapolis, Md.) 1910-1922, 1916-05-05
Continued from previous ISSUE

A sudden sense OF chill caused Nan
ley to clutch for the fur coat thrown
in at his feet. and struggle into it.
AS he did so the earth seemed sud
denly 10 fall away from him. Villages
became ~spangled checker-boards Of
lights. Highways became winding
strings Of pearls.
Manley forgot the chilliness striking
into his bones. lie forgot Margery
Golden and Legar. He forgot the ORR
gin OF his mission that brought him
winging through the midnight heaY-
ems lie forgot the fact OF his own
puny existence and the trivial ends TO
which it had been given over. All
these he forgot, completely and utter
", until Evart. sweeping out along
the twinkling shore lights of South
Brooklyn. circled north again where
tho brazeu figure OF Liberty guarded
the upper bay, and dropped lower
along that tapering point Of gloom
where Battery park nOsed like q ship 8
PROV into the tides OF the Atlantic.
They were still planning down. gently,
like a settling sea bird, with the tilted
planes veering a little westward TO es-
cape the beetling skyscrapers along
the canyon OF lower Broadway.
Marley thought, for a moment, that
Evart had misjudged his position.
Then he felt sure that Evart had also
misjudgod his height, that his stabil-
ling fin was already too low 10 clear
the fat roof that abutted the light
strewn tower itself
But Evart. obviously, knew what
he was about. For he took that OBJ
long Of fiat gloom outlined in electrics
with a gentle upward undulation like
the upward swoop Of q bluebird alight-
ing on a maple tree Into that artful
upward swoop was absorbed much OF
their momentum. for Evart had plain
ly remembered that their running
space was limited But even with this
precaution there remained a perilous
paucity of runway for before the
bounding and quiyering organism of
nickel and steel and canvas came 20
a stop it lurched head-on into wall
of the tower itself
Manley could hear the crash of glass
as the damper plane at the nose OK
the Quivering chassis brought up short
against one of the tower windows
He was dimly aware of aali-tumblirg
and matchmaking through q network
Of wooden stuts and steel piano-wlre
stays and cross guys He was vaguely
conscious Of Evart calling out that cv-
erything was all right, that there was
no damage when q holtnours wola
coulan patch up
But Marley. IN truth was thinking
little OF either Evart or his fier All
his thoughts, as he climbed lranGcaly
up through the broken tower window,
were revolving about the problem as
to whether or not he was too late,
And that all-vital question sun OBJ
sessed him as he mounted the iron
treads of the stairway leading TO the
tower top, painting up flight after fight
until his lungs seemed bursting for
want of air, and his over.driven heart
beat drumlike against his rib-cage.
And as he reached the top and flung
out through the narrow door opening
OIL the campanile-like balcony crown.
ing that skyscraping structure, ne
knew, even as he saw two figures
standing there before him, that he
was too late.
That much he knew, even before he
caught at enough breath TO call out
a warning to Enoch Golden or swing
about and spring for the second figure.
already shrinking back in the shadow
OF that many-columned cupola For in
the hand of the second figure Manley
had already caught sight of a tell-tale
sheet of paper 1t was a yellowed
and time-woTn scrap of paper, and lit
tie more, but to Manley it had become
the emblem and pennon of desperate
cause, a flag to be rallied round and
fought for, to the last ditch and the
last gasp, as harried soldiers fight
through the smoke of battle for their
colors.