Fulton County tribune. (Wauseon, Ohio) 1883-1925, 1917-12-07

below him; it was perfectly impossible
to judge, for the darkness was not
"Flowers turn to the light! :" drOned
Ismail's voice above sententiously, and
turning, he thought he could see red |
eyes peering over the rock. He jumped, |
and made a grab for the flowing beard
that surely must be below them, but
he missed.
Little fish swim to the light!
droned Ismail. "Moths fly to the
light Who is a man that he should |
know less than they?"
He turned again and stared at the |
light. Dimly, very vaguely he could |
make out that causeway led down. |
ward from almost where he stood. He |
was convinced that should he try too /
climb back Ismail would merely reach /
out a hand and shove him down again, /
and there was no sense in being put
to that indlgnity. He decided to go |
forward, for there was even less sense /
I'm standing still. SO he stopped to
feel the floor with his hand before
deciding to go forward. There was
no mistalling the finish given by the
tread of countless feet. He was on a
highway, and there are not often pit
falls where so many feet have been.
For all that he went forward as a
certain Agag once did, and it was
many minutes before he could see a
certain glowing blood-red in the light
behind two lamps, at the top of fight
of ten stone steps. When he went
quite close he saw carpet down the
middle of the steps, so ancient that
the stone showed through in places
all the pattern, supposing it ever had
any, was worn or faded away. Carpet
and steps glowed red too. His own
face, and the hands he held in front
of him were red-hot-poker color. Yet
outside the little ellipse of light the
darkness looked like a thing to lean
against, and the silence was so intense
that he could hear the arteries sing
ing by his ears.
He saw the curtains move slightly,
apparently in a little pufr Of wind that
made the lamps waver. Then he walked
up the steps and at the top he stopped
to examine the lamps.
They were bronze, cast, polished and
graved. All round the circumference
Of each bowl were figures in half
relief, representing a woman dancing
She was the woman Of the knife-hilt,
and of the lamps in the arena! But no
two figures of the dance were alike.
1t was the same woman dancing. but
the artist had chosen twenty differ
ent poses with which to immortalize
his skill, and hers. Both lamps burned
sweet oil with a wick, and each had
a chimney of horn, not at all unlike
modern lamp chimney. The horn
was stained red.
As he set the second lamp down he
became aware of a subtle, interesting
smell. and memory took him back at
once to Yasmini's room in the Chandni
Chovk in Delhi where he had smelled
it first. 1t was the peculiar scent he
| had been told was Yasmini's own-a
blend of scents, like chord of music,
in which musk did not predominant.
| He took three strides and touched
the curtains, discovering now for the
| first time that there were two of them,
divided down the middle. They were
of leather, and though they looked old
as the Hills" themselves, the leather
was supple as good cloth.
"Kurram Khan hal !" he announced
/ ha
There was no sound beyond the cur
tains. With his heart in his mouth he
parted them with both hands, startled
by the sharp jangle of metal rings on
rod.
So he stood, with arms outstretched,
staring-staring- g-staring-with eyes
skilled swiftly to take in details, but
with a brain that tried to explain
formed a hundred wild suggestions
and then reeled. He was face to face
with the unexplainable-the riddle of
Khinjan caves.
The leather curtains slipped through
his fingers and closed behind him with
the clash of rings on a rod. But he
was beyond being startled He was
not really sure he was in the world.
He was not certain whether it was the
twentieth century, or So B. c., or ear
lier yet; or whether time had ceased
The place where he was did not
look like cave. but q palace chamber
for the rock walls had been trimmed
square and polished smooth; then they
had been painted pure white, except
for a wide blue frieze, with line OF
gold leaf drawn underneath it. Ant
on the frieze, done in gold-leaf too
was the Grecian lady of the lamps
always dancing. There were fifty ol
sixty figures of her, no two alike.
A dozen lamps were burning, set II
inches cut in the walls at measured
intervals, They were exactly like tht
two outside, except that their horr
chimneys were stained yellow instead
of red, suffusing everything in a COLDER
glow.
Opposite him was a curtain. rathe
like that through which ne had en-
tered. Near to the curtain was a bed
whose great wooden posts wer
cracked with age. In spite of its ag
1t was spread with fine new liner
| Richly embroidered, not very ancien
! Indian draperies hung down from
to the floor on either side. On +
above the linen, man and a woma
lay hand in hand, and the woman wa
so exactly like Yasmini, even to he
clothing and her naked feet, that
was not possible for man to be sell
possessed.
They both seemed asleep. It wa
minutes before he satisfied himse
that the mans breast did not rise an
fall under the bronze Roman armC
and that the woman's jeweled gauz
stuff was still. Imagination playe
1t such tricks with him that in the still
h, ness he imagined he heard breathin
N After he was sure they were bot
dead, he went nearer, but it was
minute yet before he knew the woma
TT was not she. At first a wild thougl
lg possessed him that she had killed he
self.
d. The only thing to show who he h;
been were the letters S. z. O. X. on