The Elbert County tribune., 1916-02-18


these powerful friends? Once more
she found herself alone-and once
more in the blind instinct for self
preservation she did what she could
for her own safety.
She dared not think of the fate Of
her friends. She mcurned them now
as dead. but still in her subconscious
mind kept bitterly fighting the convic-
ton even as it came. And as she ar
gued. she found herself swept away
farther and farther from the place
where last she had seen them.
In some way, she knew not how,
Kitty found herself among many 9TH
ers upon the same considerable piece
of wreckage where Roleau and Fred
erick had endeavored to place her
soon after the explosion. Many others
now clung to this. She shuddered as
she cast a glance about her over the
water, and drew closer to the center
of the raft One after another she
saw them lose their hold; one after
another she saw them carried away
by the waves. AS for herself. pre-
served miraculously, she knew not
how, she fastened herself as best she
could to the frail floating floor and
ceased to struggle. Mercifully her
senses left her for a time.
When she came once more slowly
| and painfully to realizing sense of
| what had befallen, she looked about
her wearily.
She was alone upon the sea. OF
those who had been about her. none
now survived Not far from her a
body or two floated, but not living
being was to be seen, not a survivor
save herself had found this means of
| safety
There was no food. There was no
| fresh water for her. There was no
means of raising a sail, or using an
oar, even of hoisting signal had she
had one And yet the sky above her
was so blue and gentle, the sea around
her SO kind, that all now seemed less
terrible than it had been but now.
Hungry and thirsty as she was she
shuddered as she thought of the added
pangs that might be hers. She called
aloud in her distress. her despair
| There came no answer, save in the
shrieks of the circling birds which
hovered. ghostlike, above her.
| The waves bore her onward, she
knew not where, and cared not how,
for how many hours she could not tell.
Face to face with herself, her past, her
future. the unhappy girl passed
period of unknown duration, engaged
in her own reflections.
It was not her own life she feared to
lose, SO she said, for life after all was
little thing, a temporary passage at
best. But If only she might have
lived now for the sake of that which
she felt in her own heart-for the
sake of that uncompleted period of her
own life whose dawn she acknowl-
edged to have seen but now!
He was gone. She had seen him
swept away before her very eyes. He
was her enemy, who had SO often
taunted her and defied her, who had
fought her in every contest of wits
yet in turn he had aided her to escape
and saved her but now-instead OF
enemy he had turned into friend or
more than friend-and he was gone
The sunset of her day came even with
it's dawn.
YES" she said to herself, "he saved
me at tho cost of his own life." And
the life of that other faithful friend,
Roleau, the dauntless, it, too, had
been wasted to save her own-the life
she now could hold but worthless,
since it must be lived alone. They
were dead-and she had been the
cause of that! What could life hold
further for her?
Kitty Gray bent her head down upon
her knees. Her hair fell about her
face. And thus she sat, she knew not
how long, resigning herself to her
fate, making her peace with what she
felt now must come. Now" said she,
"let me die!" And when once more
the sleep of exhaustion came upon her
she thought it that of death itself.
She wakened, none the less, in
time-for strong indeed are the ties
that bind us whether or not we like
to this life into which we are born
without our asking. She wakened and
stared with hollow eyes about her ut
world which she neither knew nor
loved. But even SO, at length her gaze
found something to cause her eyes to
kindle, her breath to come a trifie
faster.
Far in the distance she had caught
sight cf the shore of distant land
tho same sight which in turn had met
the gaze of that friend whom now she
mourned. 1t lay there low on the sea
and distant-land, some sort Of land
, shc knew not what.
, She looked at it DULY, alphabetically
In truth, she was too far gone to care
Whether or not she retained CON
l sciousness through the remainder oi