Show flo I 1 11 x the PT I 1 fie crippled lady of t Peri bonka od aver ey james curwood I 1 i nu service Q 1929 2 Double doubleday doy dorea co tan inc R CHAPTER X continued isi 11 1 could not understand her then when she told rue lue how gladly she would give her life were it not tor for me to live lire for a 9 single year the glori ous freedom of molly brant said paul faul but I 1 do clu now lo in that one year ste she knew she bhe would ciril somis some thing which would more than make up for all the other beara ears she might live just na as every hour here with will you to 1 more to me than ten thousand buck back there As he be said these thing and believed and felt them there was in him a will to live which would nut not utterly extinguish itself it was scarcely more han ban a spark a smoldering em ein her that was bound to die for his big eyes his brain and every faculty of reason which he possessed told him there was rici no hope or of fin filling ling a way beyond the walls walla which shut them tn la A few pi before when carla had sat at his bis knees with his bis fingers feeling the warmth anti and sweetness of her hair this spark had leaped into lame flame it still remained as aria yielded at last to bis demand and gave herself to the bed he be had mail for her with his oat for her pillow it seems almost a sin to sleep she said and if were oear near or ever evec the necessity for it he could find no shadow of it in her fam face she might have risen from her bed an hour on r ago so freshly fres lily clear and lovely were her eyes so deep their lustrous content and happiness when she looked at him yet after a little her lashes drooped as if to well veil the love behind them and lay in velvet darkness against the whiteness of her cheeks for a while paul sat close and watched her and with each breath the flame in him grew stronger the demand that something happen through force of god or man to break down the walls of ejesta which environed her alone with carlas unconscious form tarui lending faith and inspiration t to 0 his bis thought he be fixed his attention as a dozen times before on the smoke ehli h rose from the burning wood where did it go hours ago be had bad asked himself this question and until he be had bad discovered a thin fog of smoke settling over the water and drifting away with the rush of 14 it his bis blood had run swiftly with a thrill of hope and now to in spite eplite of the fact that he be knew where it went the quest question lon remained as if a voice inside Ws his bead bao bad been trained to ask it parrot like and could not be made to stop he be and carla had bad collected a pile of pitch witchwood wood As they had found each stick they had bad acclaimed it a treasure discovered until the thrill of a game had become part of their en deavor he chose a stick heavily heally weighted with pitch and lighted the end of tt it in the fire then he walked off into the gloom where tie lie and carla had bad gone many times before it was like following the inside of a great rock drum which billeb was flat on one side oat flat where the water thundered and raced through the mountain when his torch burned abort he be returned tor for another carla bad not moved in her sleep and be burled himself in blackness again following the rock so closely that his body touched it trying ht HI every step to pierce with his vision a little farther into the stygian pit over his bis bend it was into this pit that the smoke went mounting tn in drifting spirals like smoke tn an indian alepee up cp there he thought it was taken by a slowly d ragging dragging current of air mane made by the suction of the stream and descended to exit from the mountain with it there was only one break in the clr cir cular wall of gruesomely black and water worn word rock against which tn ages past a subterranean flood bad washed and roared this was where a small section of it bad given way from overhead and had plied piled op a mass of broken stone which he be bad climbed with carla watch watching ing from below here the smoke from his bis torch did not go upward but settled about his head bead an ana disappeared toward the vent in the mountain through which the river rustled rushed with great force ile he wont went to tills this outlet it was a hole bole which his eyes viere acre unable to measure choked to within a foot of its upper jaw by a seething lood flood of water and out of which though the space for pound found was small came such a sullen rumbling that his blood was chilled as he be listened to it IL alone be would have plunged into this to die fighting pitting his bis small strength against all the forces which might oppose him was viall the urge which was refusing to subdue itself within hini him tie ie rung dung out his fl arning torch and saw it swallowed tn in an instant stant like that be wound have gone if aria bad not been there to go with him ile he turned back to the lire fire nod put on a fresh stick of resinous wood before he be sat lo IQ the saud near enough to carla to touch tier her with his hand ile be woud wondered ered it tear fear had begun to seize upon him as he looked at her on conscious form foreseeing the torment of impending hours when mail mad ness would be tor for him alone unless they died together he be muil outlive carla caria to save her from a realization of that which he to lo his bis greater strength should bogold bear CHAPTER XI paul panl knew be must keep moving or rouse carla from rom her sleep the nakedness and desolation of aloneness were burning him into a coward not a coward who was waa afraid of death but one who felt increasing horror in pass passively lively waiting tor for it it he went to the debris of rock again he had bad no reason for tills this no thought ht except that it offered offer erl him the he one chance to do something physical besides fumbling his ava way over unstable and shifty saud sand the desire for a work to do was an ache in his bis body as well as his brain and be began to climb the broken mass as he had done once before be had bad gone about thirty or forty feet above the floor of their dungeon then but this time he found footholds which carried him a little farther until from the polar point be reached he be could took look over the bulge to in the rock which had bad previously concealed their tire and could clearly see carla in the glow low of it he bad the desire to call to her to feel her glorious life a part of air their existence again sleeping she seemed gone from him ile he swung his torch luico making a writing of ore bre in the blackness and his lips almost cried her name then be recognized the weakness of his act and began to pull himself a little more up op the broken wall it if carla wad awakened and turned her eyes toward him she would have seen a strange and weird thing the burning piece of was a spout of yellow flame illumining Illum ining at times the ghostly figure that bure bore it and then floating alone la in a limbo of midnight emptiness as it if borne dv by shades that tn in color and spirit were a port part of the gloom she night might have thought routing rousing herself from slumber that hands which were no longer pauls were hearing bearing it toward the roof 0 of f their world steadily up into this pit of acheron acheson it wen went and there it disappeared as if smitten by a mighty breath that extinguished it in a secona for a time utter otter darkness lay where the light had been then the torch reappeared as suddenly as sable wings had engulfed IL it and in another moment it was plunging downsbrough down through space in a few minutes paul caul came where it had fallen si uttering stuttering to ID the sand and picked it up again more than ever his face was like that of a ghost his cheek was marked by a bleeding wound his shirt was in shreds on his bis breast his eyes blazed in a way that would have startled carla carl he went to the edge or the water and bathed his bis face and hands bands then tie he returned to the ore and knell beside carla he raised her bead gently in his arms and she old ma not awaken he be held it against his breast and kissed her hair bair carla ill 1 be whispered her lips moved her lashes trembled and opened slowly to unveil her eyes you have slept a long time he be said at least it seemed long ions and I 1 took a torch and climbed the pile of rocks again I 1 went higher then than before so high that I 1 came to a ledge lede and followed it and then I 1 came to a great erlick in the wall and there at the end of it 1 saw light light she breathed yes light from the ibe sun I 1 have found a way oui there was silence then almost without effort it seemed to carla crept lot iut of his arms he knew that something was going with her forever her face was whiter than his own what he had bid b id dreidel to see lay in her eyes a thing hack back and crushing the glory which had lived tn them for a little while the understanding of what his bis discovery meant came quickly to her and he saw a fabric of assembled dreams going to pieces like one tie of the odd jumble pictures on a screen when its hundred disintegrated parts come came together again they formed Cl alres ia face e waiting for him at the end of the trail of tight light sent to guide them back to an earthly destiny still filled and which tor for a time had bad passed centuries away from them TO BE BB CONTINUED j |