OCR Text |
Show only voice she had not heard while the debate was In progress; stolid he had remained then as now. During the hour since elapsed his mind had been following the same track as hers. The same vision had been present to his inner eye. He would fling the first stone; it was his right; but not at her. It should crush that hated thing, with curling hair and light eyes, which had made him the laughing stock among his fellows. The Old Law was a good law, a just one. Had he ever beaten her? No, not once. Had he ever given her cause for chagrin? More fool he ! You must beat a woman wom-an to make her respect you, and make her jealous if you would have her love you. Well, he would be avenged on the morrow ; he should see her crushed and broken, hanging in her bonds: that pretty, round, smiling face streaked with a vermilion that was not paint. What was It he once heard that priest say about forgiving? Did the white men forgive such things? He did not think it. But that old priest-he priest-he was always talking about loving those that despitefully used you. Yes, that was how she would look hanging there with blood running over her face. He had seen a picture like it of a man on a cross. A man that was God, so the priest said. What had that to do with this? Bad people peo-ple killed Him because He was good. Good people were going to kill this woman because she was bad. Yes, It would hurt her; she ought to be hurt. How could you love people peo-ple that shunned you? How long would it take to kill her? He hoped no one would hit her in the eye; that would be bad. Would she scream? On the whole, he thought he would go off somewhere until it was over. He threw himself on his back and looked up into the sky. Somewhere above that blue floor was a place for the Indian. So the priest said, but he had known it before. How many spangles of light there were up there more and more as he continued to gaze. The blue vault seemed to open Into depth beyond depth ; be fancied fan-cied it a series of caverns incrusted with something sparkling like mica. The nighthawks had ceased their whirring, but borne on the utter stillness still-ness was the silvery tinkle of bells on the team of a belated ore wagon. He heard them for a good while as the mules toiled up the long grade through the canyon below. Sleep was sifting softly down upon him from the Immeasurable silence into which he was gazing, when the little querulous cry of the infant, instantly in-stantly hushed upon its mother's breast, assailed his ear. He sprang to his feet as if shot from a catapult cata-pult and stood scowling. A penetrating whisper reached his ear. "Komo !" He gave no sign. "Komo !" It came again, faint and clear, cadenced like a death wall. Still he was immovable. "Kill us now!" Motionless he remained. The sibilant whisper came again, freighted with woeful entreaty. "Why have you waited so long? You wished to at first. Why did you let the old man persuade you?" Rigid he stood. Again the voice breathed in the darkness, dark-ness, hissing with scorn now. "What shame to you ! No wonder the young men laugh at you !" Then he stirred. His hand sought his knife in the bosom of his shirt. "Yes, they laugh 1" shrilled the deriding de-riding voice. Komo sprang forward and strode toward the crouching heap over there in the gloom. His knife was out. Kill her? Of course he would, and her brat, too. What had the rest of them to do with this affair? His hand was raised to strike, and he did not. Why? I do not know. He did not know. Does any one of us know, why, at supreme moments of his life he does not the thing he had purposed, but some other? "Instead, he stooped down and cut the thongs that bound her ankles. "Go!" he whispered hoarsely. For an Instant she lay, incredulous, bewildered ; then got up slowly, staggering stag-gering awkwardly upon her benumbed feet. "Go!" he repeated, striking her upon the breast with his fist clenched on the handle of his knife. And like a small creature released from a trap, like a hunted coyote, like the flitting shadow of a wing, she was gone. HARSHNESS OF THE OLD LAW By BATTERMAN LINDSAY ; ( by Short Story Pub Co.) THE elders had sat long In deliberation delib-eration around the flickering council fire. There had been protracted silences, broken by seemingly casual remarks from one guttural throat or another, until all had spoken. Then arose a patriarch, and leaning on his staff, uttered himself him-self passionately and at length. Bent, smoke-dried, blear-eyed, toothless, tooth-less, the fires of youth seemed to reanimate re-animate his shrunken frame, as he told of the past when the Piute had been sufficient unto himself; when by the prowess of his bow, and the cunning of his snare, and the industry of his women, he had been supplied with food, raiment, dwellings and utensils meet for his needs; when he was manly, temperate, self-supportirig and equal to his fate, be It good or ill. And now, what was he? A beggar at back doors, or a prisoner on reservations; reser-vations; a scoff, a byword, a slave to the white man's firewater whenever he could lay hands on it. His women no longer dug roots and cured flesh, and fish, and dried berries, or wove water-tight baskets, or sewed robes of rabbit skin. They idled on the streets of the white man's towns ; or, if they worked at the white man's work, spent all their gain on his gauds. And now It was come to this: yes, this; and he pointed his skinny, shaking forefinger fore-finger at a figure crouching in the outer dusk. Yet there were those among them who spoke of the harshness of the Old .Law. Degenerates! Weaklings! Who cared not for the virtue of their wives and daughters, If their bellies w-ere filled. Better a heap of stones on every hilltop than that their women should learn to think slightly of chastity. chas-tity. Drive her forth indeed! To what? To be the prey and the sport of the hereditary foe. That were not mercy, but a crueler doom than that of the Old Law. Let the woman expiate on the hilltop at morn, as soon as the squaws should have gathered a heap of stones sufficient unto the work. Broken and exhausted with his passion, pas-sion, the old man ceased and sat down, and there was silence. After a time a middle-aged man arose, cast his vote for the death penalty, and stalked away Into the outer darkness. Then another man stood and did likewise; then another and another, until all were gone but the shriveled denunciator denuncia-tor and one other. Lastly, the ancient raised himself painfully from the ground and addressed the silent man across the fire. He did not seem to think it necessary to ask his opinion. "You can guard her, for you will not sleep," he said, and hobbled away. The women and youths who had been standing in a mute and awestruck awe-struck circle around the judges now dispersed quickly to their rest. A cur, pushed out of his warm corner by a human occupant, yelped protestingly, and a little importunate cry answered an-swered from the heap over there in the obscurity. Out of it, a woman drew herself to a sitting posture, and lifted up a papoose case, so that' the child within could take the breast. Unwitting betrayer be-trayer of its mother, with its pink skin and gray eyes, what would befall it after tomorrow's dawn? When she should be lying under a heap of stones, what would they do with her baby? Nothing? Yes, that would be it. They would move camp at once, and the papoose would be left to starve, or to be devoured by coyotes. No heart would be touched by its walling. Better Bet-ter it should die with hei. She would hold It to her breast, and perhaps It would receive the first blow. It would not take much of a stone to crush so small a thing. She saw it all as it would happen. With the first light, the women would be gathering rocks; the boys would help, in their eagerness to get at the sport. Then they would lead her forth and tie her to something; It would be that little juniper growing by itself on the hilltop, because It was the only thing suitable for snch a purpose within with-in a radius of miles. (For it was a treeless land.) Then they would gather before her in a semicircle. She knew how every face of them all would look, wreathed in scorn and hatred. The women would taunt her. Her husband would cast the first stone. Where would It hit her? Would he aim to kill, or only to wound? No, he would not wish her to die too soon. That first one would be a very large stone. Then they would make a target tar-get of her. The boys would wager among themselves as to the exact spot where their missiles should land. Why should they wish to hurt her? She had never harmed any of them. The Old Law the savage law of an inferior in-ferior race striving; to protect its worn-enklnd worn-enklnd against a superior one yes. of course she knew of It. But when had it ever been enforced? But when, also, had she ever known it set at naught? Oh, little fair-skinned traitor! why had she not slrangled your first feeble wail? Why, even now, did she clasp you passionately to her bosom i "Sweet sins go to cruel recompense." She had never heard that saying, but Its paraphrase was In her thought. The grating whir of the nighthawks jarred her ear as they swooped about her In the darkness. By the smoldering fire the solitary watcher sat motionless. Uls was thi |