Show the crippled lady f peri bonka 0 ote by r james cawood WW bent a 1 D Doa donia dome co C die CHAPTER VIII con continued linued 14 he be swung himself out oat thrusting against the rock and when the bogres ogres of 0 the water pit dragged at their vie vic tims carla was wao in bis big arms ula HIS brain was kienle alive again and he knew that teams or of oxen have pulled but futilely against theonder the under cpr currents rents which one after another were transporting them irresistibly and yet without great busto through watery space apace thought of physical salvation scarcely filtered in a ray or of hope through his bis mind and tits his senses were by tile the allax presence of death in carla were his strength and courage ile he locked tits his arms about her closely lie he could eel her clinging to hlin him with the same ame desire to inseparable when the end come came strange A kingdom of a land ot of ion a place of fairies a world of dreams they vere ere going to it all between the walls walla where no me man 13 had ever looked death A magnify magn magnificent ift adventure with carla in his armal arms I 1 A roaring filled his ears they were traveling swiftly now tile his senses benses censes grew less distinct like colors merging one into another in a sunset sky queer why it should end like this after years of life he and carla together as it must have been intended from the beginning A glori ous graciousness of fate an immortal symphony of fulfillment fulfilment to pass on like this no mutter how many hundred had gonabe gone before I 1 A and d some one his wife iad had said that seconds meant more more t alian I 1 is n years when like this the roaring was an enormity of sound its walling wailing was like the wind in the cava cave of aeolus its thunder like Sten stenfors tors blasts rumbling through the empty bowels of the earth they numbed and anesthetized yet left him with a shred of living thinking cells which told him thy they were tearing through the gullet of the gorge and which at the same fame time hild held his bis arms unyielding as bands of steel about carlas body although close to the edge of an abyss of utter darkness consciousness did not quite leave him vaguely he be experienced the thrill of being trans irons ported out of a hell bell of tumultuous sound into of a soft and gently drifting sea which was without noise or violence for an interval he fancied his arms were wings and that hat bebas he was trying to fly making rather a bad mess of it because one side of him refused to ordinate coordinate co with the othir other this was the arm only one arm now which held carla with tb the eother other after a little be found himself clawing and digging into something A man roar may live a hundred years but when be to Is ready to the die and looks back ov over erthe the path he has traveled it seems very short and the hundred yeara no more than afew a few hours paul had bad reflected upon the illusory and bi baseless seless fabric of time its inadequacy and the hot 1 lowness of its human measurement one who Is happy has bus but a fleeting vision of life carla had bald to him once to livelong and terribly one must be unhappy in prison it was odd why he should be thinking of this as he continued to cl claw awand and dig nut but time had fastened itself upon him like a leech and if each second so cond of bis big wide vilde wideawake awake life had be been bednas enas as long as these few seconds lie would have lived a thousand years yeam during I 1 this his cycle ot of his big existence he slowly find and bedl bously progressed until with air lining filling his lungs again and the smothering folds of near insensibility breaking away froni him be knew that be was no DO longer in water that his fingers were clutching at soft sand and tant the burden which lie he had drag pd wit walh I 1 him wai carla there was scafe scarcely ely a breath be tween this knowledge and the full and poignant iii of every faculty with walh his brain was capable cap atit of being inspired but mys tery file detent tl ol death and tile fiul fact ol of his own physical salv ullon wore were submerged all at once lit in an agonized appeal to tile limp lend form forin which he clasped in his arms arins the 91 arlit of the sable blackness about him its bened to tits his voice calling carlds s onnia nabe aspe struggled to bring tiff life hark hit inac tier bod body Y once he had worded wor kirt over ever a little giri who had licen been anken from the water and now cow memory came to him vividly of tile lie ural first gentle beating ot of the heart again the slow returning odthe of the sou soul into the tender lender hodd until linto the child lived ved and ami breathed onte once more but carlas soft breust breast gave no response her lips were void cold and life less and at last believing tl her er sun surely ly dead he ha held her face el close ose to him blin and kissed her mouth anil and eyes as tile the father of the little girl eliud kissed his child when she wits was returning to him when the first whisper of if breath cann came from arias bortas lips tie be was holding hm like this staring into tile lie blackness her heart beating faintly responded to the cabi call ot of life close a against his own tier her lips illis grew warrn warm iler her eyes opened baul kissed her again in tile the blackness that met shut them hem in oud and found that she was alive ile he did not cry lut out or speak but at brushed her thick wet hair back end and pressed bis big face doge close to hers here and waited in her first consciousness carlas arms arma crept about his bis neck tier her lips breathed his hii name words we were battle for a little willie only in silence could they c claim each other a silence of voice rolce where other sound was ino moaning aning end and throbbing about them both knew what it meant a as the seconds counted themselves off they had come through the mouth of the gorge and were i aught in a sub terra nenn nonn note hole of 0 the eurth euith chance A A miracle god that they might have each other at last with the barrier barder between theta turn torn away this wag aa a carlas thought and her arnn arms drew closer about baul he belonged to her now for there was no other wi world id than ahli a pit of gloom with death for its walls walla an abysmal grave where love tor for a space would build tor for them the great worlds world altar stairs that through d darkness r knees u up p to I 1 ind and she almost spoke the words instead she whispered it wits wn right for we me to come paull paul you are areglado bladt glad 1 I 1 know now that I 1 expected you said paul CHAPTER IX after it a time they were standing tn in the blackness black ness more distinctly the hollow rumbling sound about them began to impinge eltse itself lf upon their ears as paul su supported carlo carla a against alast his big breast they listened as if for a voice his bli lips pressing against her hair where they tind had so long ions wanted to rest what they heard ayas ans unlike anything out in tile hie world ot of sun and sky shy the roaring and walling were gone and in their place liace one a phantomlike phantom like cadence that moved and stirred about them but which seemed to come mostly from a vast dome over their heads beads it was tike like something trying to escape throb bing until it seemed to be beating with little clubs at the drums of their ears when it was nearest then leaving theta them to intone and hum like a huge tuning tinning fork through the ln in sea of gloom there was no break in the sonorous sameness of it it was wag eternity of sound without change I 1 tn a a little while it could drive a II 11 living v ing thing mad 1 I am not afraid carla said are you her voice was no different than it if chesun the sun had bad been shining and there was something in it for him which had bad never been there before A kind of exultation came with wibb it a gladness which trembled in the darkness and which sent and triumph sweeping over him in i a submerging emotion afraid good G d not nol she drew herself butof out of bis big arms and stood beside him with her hand in his big their voices had broken down a tenseness about them and life drew closer more sure lie he wanted to see her and tumbled fumbled in IA his bis sodden pocket for his bis metal box of matches im going to strike a light carla J I 1 want to look at you I 1 A flare bare of yellow flume flame made a bole in the blackness unell it died out oat their eyes devoured each other carla was as like an angel love transforming death into a happy incident was an uncovered glory in her eyes at last repealed for him to see lie ie knew that only the of their fate could make anke her look at him like this with claere living and waiting in another world outside ilire seemed infinitely removed from him a century nay a glow of mem ory ry like star dust yet he be thought of her a as a the match went out his file wife would go on liv living I 1 ng lie and carla were about to die ile he had seen un on and sureness reness in the ehlo ing depths of carlas eyes when the tiny flume had illumined their faces she had let him know without words that earth bonds were ft ere stricken from her because I 1 there here wo wap no longer an earth for either of them for a few were to be in a world all their own then their couch of everlasting sleep together he felt it spiritual reaction from the opples slon of horror a and nd rent feni which had luine come upon him to feel sure that varin knew and that thai she jittu pad given liei herself self to him because beta iise of her ger know 1 nine I lu that eth she wits not afraid but was wag hayny in the freedom which an sp ap termination of life made possible for them tilled filled him with an edin emotion tion which took from their brief future its stark and ugly grim llesi and giue gave to it an almost joyous so aa hect act TO SM 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