Ladysmith news-budget. [volume] (Ladysmith, Rusk County, Wis.) 1907-1927, 1920-07-23

On, yes, ne believed it now, right
enOugh-why shouldn't he? What
about that murderous attack Won Su
had made upon him, and that he had
thought was deliriuml But that
wasn't all, he had reason beside that
to believe Ting Wah's story; reason
enough, God knew! now that he came
to think of the things that were crowd
ing into his mind
Out of the shimmering heat waves
that rose along the deck and seemed
to hover so weirdly over those COW
cred shapes that ought not to have
been there, another scene gradually
took form, at first indistinctly, vague
ly, then in sharp outline, startling, dis
| tinct.
1t was stone house, gray stone
house, all by itself, without neigh
bors, isolated, a silent place. Yes, he
remembered it! 1t seemed to bring a
chill upon him nOW-the cold, dreary,
| lifeleSS house had done it's best to
crush even a laugh out Of his boyhood
with it's eternal, silent brOoding mys-
terry. That was why he had run away
ten years ago, when he. was fourteen.
All his earlier recollections were of
that place.
His mother wasn't there, he had
never seen his mother. There were
just his father, and that tall, swarthy
Eastern servant, who frightened his
boys heart-just those two and him
self. He never saw anyone else.
No one ever came to the house. No
one was ever admitted Gunga the
servant, fetched the supplies from the
nearby village. His own education was
superintendent by his father. But there
had never been any intimacy between
his father and himself.
He had never questioned his father
but Once-after that he had never
dared to do so. He remembered the
deadly whiteness that had come over
the morose, taciturn face the grip of
iron upon his shoulder the hoarse pas
sion in his fathers voice.
"Never speak to me again of that"
his father had said. "When you are
know"
Wallen rocked unsteadily in his
chair. What a frightful stencil the
ship possessed-Or was >it only his
imagination What was it he had |
been thinking Of? Oh, yes, the six
Cinnamon who had come to kill him,
and the gray house where there were
SO many bars and locks, and where |
every night his father and Gunga |
turned the keys and the chains rat
tied on the doors as they fastened
them.
He raised his hand and passed it
across his eyes in startled way. How
wildly it came back to him, that night
as though it were just happening
now, as though he were in the very
act of living it again.
A crash in the dead Of night
through that silent house, and he had +
sat up, trembling, in bed. Then cry,
the report of pistol shot, and the
echoes of the shot rumbled and re-
verberated through the house, striking
terror into his young heart. And he
was crawling out of his bed, and out
INTO the hall and down the stairs in
MS nightshirt.
And halfway down he stopped In
horror.
Below, in the hallway, stood the
giant form of his father holding a
candle, and on the floor lay stretched
4 huddled form, and Gunga, with a
'evelver, was bending over the Thing
hat did not move. Then came his IA
hers voice, in a strange queer note
# tense eagerness.
Look again, Gunga. Has he one
niger on the left hand?'
And Gunga had shaken his head as,
lie had answered.
81 have looked, sahib and the hand
S whole"
Spellbound he had stood there on
he stairs, lad of fourteen, and
3unga had lifted the Thing in his ,
rms and gone away with it; and the :.
reat figure Of his father, dressed in
ajamas, had stood motionless for a
tairs and caught sight of him-and
uddenly had sent a wild, unnatural
augh ringing through the house. I
"You there, eh, Stacey?" he had
aughed out, as though unnamed. |
Well, I'll tell you something now.
lever go to the East. Remember thatt
never go to the East"
And then he had pulled himself to-
ether, and his face had set sternly as :
e had pointed up the stairs. SEQ
acll to your bed" he had command =
d sharply. $50 back to your bed in 1
tantly!'
EYES," said Wallen aloud to himself. :
That's what he said: Never go to
he East-never go to the East"
But he had come to the East and :
X Cinnamon had shipped aboard the {
polo to kill him. His father had y
cen quite right in telling him not to
} to the East. How was it that he
ad come there? He had run away (
ON that gray house after that night, q
nd he had never heard of his father =
nee. e