Eagle River review. [volume] (Eagle River, Wis.) 1890-1927, 1920-03-19
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CHAPTER x.-continued.

credible flight of sound, she StOOQ, d
slim tense figure for once made free
of that domain that is beyond art, be-
gond genius and is called quite simply,
Gift>of Cod With toss and back
ward shake of the mans great head,
the voice climbed smoothly to that stu
pendous high G that has wrecked the
reputation of many pygmies and
| brought fame to a daring few. 1t held
and still held until earth and moon and
stars seemed little things that paused
TO listen, INSTRUCTED in unimportant
/ courses. Breath suspended until her
| lungs were near to bursting, Andrea
waited for that note to come down IN
TO the range of normal belief, but to
her mind at least it was destined to
hang eternally in the heavens, for the
man had turned.
| Her eyes knew horror for the first
rime. The mans face was half oblit-
Grated. 1t had been plowed by conf1u-
ent smallpox and destroyed by a worse
| disease. The nose was gone, leaving
an ignoble ruin of stripped cartilage,
dried in the air till it was like wealth
cred parchment. One ear had been
ravaged in clean cut SO that it rose
to a needle-point. That the wounds
were healed only added an inexorable
4 finally to their responsiveness.
Only the mans thick red. lips and
! his blazing eyes seemed to have es-
| capped the peStilence. AS his startled
gaze fell upon Andrea his mouth
| opened to q wide, soundless laugh.
With broad shoulders stopped, his abb
normally low-hanging hands curved up
like monstrOus talons and his shaggy
beard waggiBg to that silent laughter,
| he advanced upon her, yencircled her
waist with his fingers and shot her up
| lightly so that she fell doubled across
his back and chest. He gave a low
| whistle and sped from the craal at an
incredible pace. The boat-boys arose
stealthily and fitted after him.
To Andrea's transfxing terror was
added a memory-a fleeing glimpse
of Trevor, standing, hands in pockets,
before his door, On his face was an
ger-cold, white, unforgiving anger.
| She thought she cried out to MacClOS-
| ter to stop, to give her but one moment
| to explain, to beg forgiveness, to
grovel at the feet of the one man in
all the world, but no sound came from
| her lips.
Not until she stood tottering on the
canted bottom of MacClosters boat did
life come back to her heart and veins
and lungs. She threw up her head
and screamed as she had never known
mortal could scream-a wild, terror
winged wall of desperate appeal. Mac
| Closter snatched tiller from rudder,
struck her across the shoulders,
knocked her, face down, into fetid
| bilge-water.
The stencil of the stale water pro-
duced in her reaction; it was so
nauseating that it momentarily drove
thoughts of all other things from her
mind. She drew away from it and,
crawling to the grated floor of small
cockpit, crouched in the corner formed
by the gunwele and the after thwart.
Just to her left, SO close that even
| with head bowed she could not avoid
seeing his enormous feet, sat MacClos-
ger
He talked to her steadily in NUT
tering undertone, but long time
passed before she began to distinguish
| one word from another. The mutter-
ing swelled slowly to clear and
| liquid enunciation; the voice. became
| Alike music undefiled. But no longer
could it drug her senses; she shud-
dered, cringed under its terrible
caress. It's beauty had become forever
| leprous.
Dear, lovely, vile and sullen per-
son. it was saying, who would have
| thought it? Who would have imagined
that you, Helen among women, pos
sessed Of beauty, youth and really
| lovely evening frock, should have
| come so far for man? Cheer up
You've found two; one dunghill ban
| tam and-and me-"
He laughed, not silently and still not
quite aloud. 1t was an extraordinary
sound. 1t awoke in Andrea a chord of
memory. 1t was not the stereotyped
laughter of the stage; it was more spe-
cialized than that Then she reme1n-
bered. His was not the laugh of an
individual: it was the clipped, stacca-
| To, maddeningly deliberate, "Ha! Ha
Fla !-Ha! Ha Hal" of chorus and
censpirators in the "Ballo in Mas
chera."
II ask you, who could have imagined
ies" he continued; then, his voice
thtckening to sinister intensity, he
ADDED, II could, d your soft car
cnss. Women! Fair women Ha Ha !!
Ia! Dreams of fair women! CARR !!
Spawn of hell Pestilence that sleep
| by day and Turk in the shadows of
nsght and wine. Damnation of the
l7f,thy byways of the world, parading
in the sweet likeness of God y
Andrea suddenly looked up, straight
into his blazing eyes. "You yourself
are speaking" she said in a clear
foice. Il am woman, weak, miser-
able-never so miserable as in this
awful night-but I'm not a coward
/ can forgive not you but what you
say, for you cried out just now from a
hell infinitely deeper than NINE"
The blaze of light in MacClcster's
eyes died to brooding glow. There
was something in Andrea's face, some