The Hope pioneer. [volume] (Hope, N.D.) 1882-1964, 1920-07-01

room made his lungs tremble for air.
The tunnel was ending in a wall or
barrier, across the top Of which an
artificial light reached the wanderer.
lie could not stop short of the wall;
his feet carried him against It. Mo-
ments Of m unreal clarity came to his
brain, in which everything was out
lined with indelible severity, inklines
of memory. There was an uncanny
view of a certain o in Dory street,
long ago, a man sleeping, mumbling as
he slept, one hand twitching upon the
side of the cot. He was whispering,
I'm going" and the room was sur
charged with the warm scent Of cinna-
mon and roses. Lexington gasped,
snatching Mt the wall, and this vision
of his father and koresh broke away
only the dark again, with Il green glow
overhead somewhere, and a great
pulsing like seismic threats. Some
thing that was distantly yet truly him.
self now commanded, and with sur
prising difficulty Con stretched his
fingers up the barrier and began to lift
himself. His eyes came level with the
top, and he blinked into the glow.
A low altar of rock was sending up
the very crystalline soul of smoke,
clear as water rising. in q spring, or
lifting gas in still air. Round about
the altar, or reclining against the
walls of the low chamber, were figures,
motionless, their colored robes and the
silken draperies of their couches as
lifeless as the sandstone that encased
all. The light came from an inverted
bowl of jade upon the wall. One couch
was higher than the rest, nearer the
peak of stones that made the altar,
and beside this couch an old woman
stood, robed in black. OF all the fig
ures in the chamber, the ancient fe-
male alone moved. and her rms,
swaying so gradually, the tips of her
sleeves drifting, were the essence Of
stiffness. Lexington was gripped cold
as he discerned through the vapors
that this person vas stroking the eye
lids of his princess.
Gowned in celestial blue and gold
gemmed ankle rings lax upon the cush-
ions, Helen lay as one in death beyond
the colorless font of smoke, and her
lovers torture was complete.
From a yellow bowl, the woman in
black moistened her fingers and con-
tinued the Grugged caresses. The bag
was proof against the fumes that had
dizzied Lexington when he was yet far
down the passage, and that drove the
souls from the bodies of all the
devotees within the s~ubterranean
chamber.
Stupidity he observed the cash in the
rock behind the bowl Of jade from
which the flaming gas emerged to H.
lumine the room; he noted the door
beyond, and an iron ring in the door.
In the crisis he DULY observed details
the tangled long mustaches of one
waxen face in a corner, the CLINT of
polished nails on a royal fat hand, the
silken dragons that stood forever lick
ing the throat Of n (male or female,
he could not tell), who lounged with a
frozen smile On a couch of crimson.
Under the weight of agony, Lexington
held ON stittly, and had the inept recol-
lection that this was the state religion,
a goddess and inverted prayer, a blow
ing upon the senses, soft as the
tongues Of serpents, deadly rs their
fangS.
Then came the thought that cen
tered him once more. He heard Helen
saying to him, an hour, an age, since,
"You are making me unhappy" To
forget his words, to loose the tangle
he had brought into her life, she had
descended to pay this visit to the
darker gods. The old hag went on
and on, rubbing gently, diminishing
o and more the slight rise and fall
c. Helen's breast. The gas Kissed
dryly from the wall.
Con felt a murderous impulse, but it
did not extend to his muscular sys-
TEN. His eyes narrowed with rage
and pain; yet he could not overcome
the smother of koresh in the air. He
hated the oriental garments Of his be-
loved, hated the. jeweled bands on her
naked ankles, the chains of jade and
wrought gold about her body. These
textures and precious things were TAX
ing her further from him, and they
aggravated the loss Of his own bodily
control. His mouth opened and GER
tain muscles Of the jaw frightened in a
laugh Of h%ysterical anger, but his
lungs gave forth no cry, and his emo
ton remained silent. All that he had
formerly known to be himself was now
but an encasement, a lock, a dry dam
upon the real He pictured him.
self in a leap into the chamber, past
the cone of rock, up to the side of his
princess. He would carry her away,
out somehow into sunlight and sanity.
But the old Con Lexington of nerve
and sinew would not respond, hanging
half-blindly upon a ledge Of sandstone,
helpless, while the new Lexington was
out of command-clear-eyed, able to
suffer, yet equally helpless. He had a
final glimpse of the dead colorful fig
ureS reclined in static delight about