| Show fellow Yellow men mell sleep J ay by J jeremy lone lane X illustrated by IRWIN MYERS A copyright Coor right by the century co CHAPTER XI continued Is 15 do you dream often often I 1 do not care for sleep but it Is pleasant to dream have you rou found it so lie he thought carefully yes ive always dreamed it runs in your foul fora lly and in mine 1 I come here every day I 1 said helen the sun must be very hot 1 I am accustomed to it I 1 do not resist it there Is great life in it it has made you lovely he said but it was unkind t you she replied and a taint cool smile touched her ber lips innocence or utter sophistication aroni rom on ultimate degree ot of one of 0 these opposite she was regarding him it was it helpless moment for the young man behind the rock lie gazed out for relief over the stinging white food cand where all of yesterday Is sacrificed in the drift of today one horseman dotted out there not far from the city a pair of keen eyes that might be able to see through stone 1 I had bad arranged with chee sling ming said the girl for you yon and my father to tire live in peace with us now that cannot be tor for you ton have tried to run away you have wounded his emotions your father and I 1 expect to get awny away but we are coming back soon no ehe said no mo man goes from here to tell the world what lie has seen chee brig only of all men goes and comes and he tells nothing the empire must fail when its secrecy Is gone con felt the chill of a stone wall you are deeply interested in the empire of the yellow sun he said dully it Is to bear a wonderful fruit said the princess princes it Is very cruel sold said levington 1 I do not agree with chee ming about everything you have a merciful heart a heart piat would be at home in america ft here this idea of racial metal fusion the blending of all into one has ins borne good fruit for two Cell centuries 1 I have hae learned but little of america except conceiving the red men sa stud d helen chee clug ailing lias hils been careful the red men are gone it Is the new world ill ml you all about it you would not be satisfied with the oppression pres slon and thievery of tau kunn kuan if you knew the ways of america mother used to talk like that you belong in america said lev ln ington ton scarcely aware of how much lie dared ta la making the statement sly MY father mentioned that yesterday lie ile Is a good man yes I 1 love lore him too he needs you yon said the girl ile he needs you returned con america would be a splendid place for you there are dreams there too if you like 1 I am not interested here Is the heart of tile the world this Is the center of power the light of ages to come here my will Is obeyed and all the good things of earth are brought before me most of them from america added con but he was was hurt deep he felt the snare of dominion around her heart perhaps she was without a heart but that did not correspond to her innate kindness she did not agree with the policy of state 1 I am needed here said the princess rather wearily there Is work endless work woric the desert Is a league of cutee that have fallen and those cities must be made to bloom again why do you plant seeds ot of poison you do not understand dreaming it Is on unbearable bearable without a dream I 1 have not your courage are you happy 1 I am tin not happy as a child Is and you love power that la Js part of my destiny cruelty sterility polson poison that Is tau kuan kann said levington watching her ber closely it need rot not be so said helen referring to her coming regency then you are satisfied happy sometimes hut but 1 what la is it 1 I cannot say eay why do you question roe me oh I 1 seem to miss something I 1 have never seen something that cannot be in the world in the evening I 1 think that in the west where the sun bun goes may be what I 1 want but then in the morning I 1 do not be bc aeve it slight might it not be worth while to follow the sun westward find and see tor for yourself no one departs from here the eald aid quietly and I 1 nave have seen the maps and I 1 am not very much strawn chee mini ming had planted this prejudice in perfect boil soil brit what is it you want do not qui question atlon TOC I 1 do not now caire mine anys I 1 am too young 1 knar I 1 believe my mother knew alion in iuds R cloteen I 1 am afraid j ii i arrn too foo laett sighed tad edged away mi from the hot boulder your tour mother could have helped you be said 1 I come here each day to ask her and she does doea not speak why the yellow prince help you r 17 1 I have not flaked asked help of him perhaps your father will advise you she shook her head slowly iler her face was wag serene yet filled with a r remote e pain beauty was about her eyes but something w wa holding back now the tires fires in cons own heart would not wait and be said 1 I wish I 1 could tell you I 1 have nothing of my own to offer except america and I 1 can give that to you there are books boaks that have been kept from you the white blood in your veins has been carefully shadowed your tour heart Is american I 1 marvel how well they have made you forget that you tou long for your own birth right that Is why you look into the west and are filled with a desire you do not comprehend I 1 never know knew what my country meant to me until I 1 got away from it working under its orders in faraway places like this you tou are longing tor for home and your own people your soul Is sick of yellow faces your mind Is weary with oriental contact lie ile checked himself for she did not seem to be following well the distant rider had changed his position coming nearer the rock seemed smaller than at first the sun hotter silence between them from the saddle the princess looked afar over the yellow earth the palace walls were indistinct in the trembling heat beat she seemed lost in a cloud of dreams it was maddening to lexington until a grent great light broke within him she said simply without looking at him you are making me unhappy even before tile the full joy of this utterance was clear to him he be was up beside her forgetful of the sentinel the sun the whole world but this A honeyed lion eyed fragrance came to him from her nearness the words that burned his heart stopped in his throat but its his eyes held hers nn an instant and tragically her unhappiness deepened deepens yet it made him glad without speaking she spurred her mount wheeled covering the man mail who loved her and then rode for the city gate CHAPTER XII the yellow bowl As he be returned to the mouth of the shaft with no thought of caution even the gobi seemed familiar and right to levington its purple band of horizon its scarlet rocks the mighty pour of the sun no longer inimical for his 71 each with a twisted knee and spine made hideous in childhood head was filled with her final words they brought hope and hurt together when once more in a normal state con was frightened at the intensity of ills his speech the fire he had sent out to her earth held no other fear than that he had said too much that he be had stumbled over the fealty in her nature in attacking her expectations of empire also he saw afresh the extent of the consequences of marahs blunder the forcing of escape last night helen had secured a sort of truce for them but it was unavailable now con grimly remembered the blows he had bad given the he soldier in marahs rooms ile he wanted to find her father the drop down the shaft did not seem so long this time but the daran darkness e ss at the bottom was overpowering ills eyes eye a remained full of green patches of sunlight then he started back as a s nearly as lie he could remember along the tunnel toward the larger cavern where the gas burned he thought he be could ameli the burned gas or the baking lentils unmistakably he scented camels none of the dwarfs was in view he had to grope having no DO torch it was like a starless night it was some time before he saw a 11 glow far ahead which satisfied him as the reflected light from the cavern in which lie he had taken leave of his friend and the interpreter lie ile was thinking with a newborn new born power and perhaps did not realize t that h at he be ha had d been wandering deeper into vie fie earth for twenty minutes the light proved uj bu be a torch carried over a croup ol of miners thy they were little fellows fel lowa each with a twisted knee and spine made hideous in childhood under the flaring light con could not steady a shudder at the picture they made half starved long armed dark creatures with the eyes narrowed all humanity drawn from their faces they peered at the large man la in the tunnel before them and a united whisper rustled from lip to lip where Is my friend white man levington made signs and variously indicated his desire to find march the eyes turned upon him grew pig like and the whisper was repeated heads turned back then toward him hostility was like powder to the match they were blaming him for the taking off of their kin con felt that he be was a bad omen to them which was the water greater need for finding march and the arab friend now the little party lined up against one side of tile the passage plainly intending the white man to pass that way con inquired also with ills his hands it if they were directing him to go on per imps they had bad just come from march now they made no response their stony countenances full upon him in the flickering light having small choice con nodded his thanks abanks and strode past them again the soft crackle of their voices he turned they were going on with the torch darkness closed about him once more ills reverie was spoiled tor for the mo dept A touch of the horror of num berless generations was upon him the burial fear lie ile could touch the earth over his head as in a tomb and span the walls from side to side then he laughed at himself it was a relief a necessity ile he came back to himself identity was renewed another necessity for new worlds had been flitting through him and he had bad forgotten much confident of locating his friend or the brown sunned sailor who had gone from aden to buffalo in his time levington pushed onward down the tunnel ile he thought of helens clelen s face oval calm day kissed awakened tin yet each moment she seemed different for now she was fully awakened a princess of evening lights and clear wine and music subtle eastern wisdom a princess only a mottled flower this latter was a form of torture to him whose heart had opened but always there was the same pale light in her eyes whether she were learned of kings and princes or quite innocent it further troubled him to find that he could not be certain as to the color if they were lit with the green of the sea at daybreak or the blue of sky at sunset they could be as steady as jade pure in their gaze and their loveliness sent him out upon a tide of yearning A warm flood seemed to rise when he remembered her slim throat and it startled him to recall the manner of her breathing at moments now with tile the earthen blackness beating in upon him con was almost ready to believe that she was a phantom that the gobi had done something to him that possibly there was no sha mo at all and h was merely coming to the surface after a plunge deeper and darker than usual to find himself III with life in a room at the old club that this helen wits was the shadow of ills his unrealized desires of all his postponed aspiration and nothing more yet tet he could hear her voice as it if she were just ahead in the darkness and lie he had bad sometime touched her hand the del delicacy cacy of that moment was still upon him lie ile shook it off and tried to laugh again to clear his mind but this time the happy effect was more elusive direction was an impossible subject and depth another lie reached an intersection ter a trying moment for the nerves as ills his hands wint out into soft nothing ile he waited in in a tension nod and heard a slow thudding like the tread of giants within the earth the air of the passages was narcotic in thinking in of tile the fierce evaporation of the desert this difference was grateful well vel aware that hint he be was lost he thought of many things old and new dwelling strangely upon the potentialities of his own spirit the well rub bed coinage of life had bad enriched him rind and he longed to spend leaning against the rough walls scarcely able to see his hands before his face levington discovered the innermost door of himself soul currents that he had touched tou clied in boyhood seemed close about him again Ile hearts arts dusk cried softly within a lonely twilight in spring the air was figured with the lie memory of bill the yellow cook of those tales la in a magic tongue told in the hot thick evenings to the sway of the ship probably bills stories had bad been of tau kuan its piled up curving roofs of close guarded maidens in their misty silks of the diamonds that spatter from the shaken plumage of a cockatoo at the fountain down upon white and ivory limbs or perhaps of these choking tunnels where one tiny owed flawed nerve would set the luckless a tearing off ills his nails in frenzy against sandstone walls the source of the fragrant frag ranj web eb of koresh levington smiled a mild mad faint welcome to the shade of the murdered chiney and drove himself erect onward i so 0 gradual wa was t the soul dark in its claiming of him that ills his will was relieved of toe the struggle brushing forward along the walls he knew the delicious weakness of convalescence a ICI joy lie ile was reduced and exalted ills five senses had bad slipped past every danger signal and in a temporary death he blundered on wondrous flowers dowers of gossamer grew about ill his feet and a thunder that was profound and musical was possessing him far ahead a new light cut across the shaft greenish greeni sli and wavering leving ton lost many minutes in making up his mind to 10 go nearer but it did not seem long lone to him and he did not f feel eel alarmed now as an odor like kites illies in a sealed room made big hl lungs tremble for or air the tunnel was ending in a wall or barrier across the top of which an artificial light reached the wanderer he could not stop short abort of the wall his feet carried him against it moments of an unreal clarity came to his brain in which everything was outlined with indelible severity of memory there was an uncanny view of a certain room in dory street long ago a man sleeping mumbling as he slept one hand twitching upon the side aide of the cot col ile he was whispering im going and the room was surcharged with the warm scent ot of cinnamon and roses levington gasped snatching at the wall and this vision ot of his father and koresh broke away only the dark again with a green glow overhead somewhere and a great pulsing like seismic threats something that was distantly yet truly himself now commanded and with surprising difficulty con stretched his fingers up the barrier and began to lift himself ills eyes came level with the top and he be blinked into the glow A low attar altar of rock was sending up the very crystalline soul of smoke clear as water rising in a spring or lifting gas in still air round hound 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 0 all the figures in the chamber the ancient female alone moved and her arms swaying so gradually the tips of her sleeves drifting were the essence ot of stillness levington was gripped cold as he discerned through the vapors that this person was stroking the eyelids of his princess gowned in celestial blue and gold gemmed gemmec ankle rings |
