| Show n sr fl n y i A he ja led lady of f Peri K eri bonka ver ly james camond w TOW mm V ehrlix Q 1920 Doub Double lefty dBr doron domn ji co inc CHAPTER X continued 16 1 11 could not understand her then when she told me how glad gladly she would give tier her life were it not for tue tile to live for it a single year the glori ova ous freedom of molly brant said paul but I 1 do now in that one year she ate knew she bhe would and some gome thing which would more than make up op for rill all the other ears she might live just at as every hour here with you ts is more to me than ten thousand back there As he said these things and believed and felt them there was in him a will to live which would not utterly extinguish itself it was scarcely more than inn a spark a I 1 smoldering ember that was bound to mi die tor for tile bis eyes his bruin brain and every faculty ot of re reason I 1 son which he possessed told him there th ere was no hope of off finding luding a way beyond the wells walls which shut them in A few before when alen carla had sat ut at his file knees with his fingers feeling the warmth and sweetness of her hair this spark had bad leaped into flume flame it still remained as carla yielded at last fast to lie bis demand and gave herself to the i bed tied he be had mod mad for her with his bis coat for her pillow it seems almost a sin to sleep she said and if slumber were near or even evec the necessity tor for it he be could find no shadow of it to in her face she might have risen trum crum her bed an hour ago so freshly clear and lovely were her eyes so deep their lustrous content and happiness when she looked at him vet fete after a little her lashes drooped as if to veil the love behind them and lay in velvet darkness against the whiteness of her cheeks for a while pauli paul sat close and watched her and with each arenth the flame in him grew stronger the demand that something happen through force of god or man down the walls of death which environed her alone with carlas unconscious form lending falth faith and inspiration to his bis thought he be used fixed his bis attention as a dozen times before on oil the smoke which walh rose from the burning burling wood where did it go hours ago he had bad asked himself hemsell this question and until he had bad discovered a thin tog fog of smoke settling over the water and drifting away with the rush of tt it his bl blood had bad run swiftly with a thrill of hope and now in spite of the tb fact that he be knew where it went the question remained as if a voice inside his bis head bead bad been trained to ask it parrot like and could oot not be made to stop he and carla lied collected a pile of witchwood pitch wood As they had found each stick they had acclaimed it a treasure discovered until the thrill thrift of a game had become part of their en deavor ue he chose it a a stick ick heavily weighted with pitch and lighted the end of it in the tire fire rheube then he walked wr off into the gloom where there he and carla aria had gone many times before it was like following the inside of a great rock druin druan whdeh was flat on one side aide f P here the water thundered and rr re I 1 rough ugh the mountain ft A n ats torla burned short hort he re turnau for or another carla had not moved in her sleep and b he e burled buried himself in blackness cgale following the rock so closely that his bla body touched it trying at every step to pierce with his vision a little farther into the styrlan pit over his head it was into tills this pit that tile tho smoke went mounting in drifting spirals rals like smoke in an indian tepee pee up there lie he thought it was taken by a slowly dragging current of air made by the suction of the stream and descended to exit from the mountain with it there was only one break in the clr cular wall wail of gruesomely black and water worn rock against v which alch tn in ages past a subterranean nn flood had washed and roared this where a small section of it had given way from over overhead hend and had bad plied piled up a mass of broken stone which he had climbed with ith carla watching from below here the smoke from his torch did not go upward but settled about his bis head an disappeared toward the vent lil in the mountain through which the fhe river rushed with great force lie he went to this outlet it w was s 3 a hole which his bis eyes were una unable ba e to measure choked to within a foot of its upper law jaw by a seething flood of water and out of which though the space for sound was small came C a me such a sullen rumbling that his bis blood was chilled ns as he listened to it 11 alone be would have plunged into this to die dle fighting pitting tile ills small strength against all the forces which might oppose him was the urge which was refusing to subdue itself within him ile ie nuns flung out his flaming torch anil and saw it swallowed la hi an instant like that he would have bave gone if carlo carla bad not been there to go with him ile he turned buck to the fire are and put on a fresh stick of resinous wood before he sat in the sand near enough to carlo carla to touch her with his hand band he xon wondered dered if fear had bad begun to seize upon him as he looked at her on conscious form foreseeing the torment of impending hours when madness would he be for him alone alona unless they died together to be must maet outlive carlato carla to save her a realization of that which be to in his greater nieth trig th should bear CHAPTER XI paul knew he roust must keep timing moving or rouse carla from her sleep the nakedness und desolation of aloneness alon alone enesa riess were turning him lato into a toward coward not a coward who was afraid ot of death but bat one who felt horror in passively waiting for it lie he went to the debris of rock roch again lie fie bad no reason for this no thau lit except that thatis I 1 it offered offe reil him the one chance to do something physical besides fumbling hla his way over unstable and shifty sand band the desire tor for a work to do was an sebe ache lo in his body as well as his bra brain in and he be began to climb the broken mass as he had done once before ile de had gone about thirty or forty feet above the moor of their dungeon then but tills this tinie time he found footholds which carried him a little farther until from the point he reached rent he could took over the 1 alge in the lie rock which had previously concealed their ore and could clearly see carla to ID the 0 glow ow of it lie he had the desire to call to tier her to feel her glorious lire fire a part of their existence again sleeping she seemed gone from hini him le wung swung hla his torch a writing of at tire lire la in the blackness and his ups almost cried her name then he fie recognized the weakness of hla his act and besan began to pull himself elf a little more up the wall if carla wad ad awakened and turned her eyes toward him she would have seen a strange land and weird thing the burning piece ot of wood was a spout of yellow flame illumining Illum ining at times the ghostly figure that flint bore bine it and then floating alone tn in a of midnight emptiness as if hurne dy by shades chatan in color und ond spirit were a part of the gloom she might have thought rousing herself al umber slumber that hands which were no longer pauls were hearing it toward the roif roat of their world steadily up into this pit of acheron acheson it went and there it II disappeared as aa it if smitten by a mighty breath that extinguished it in a second for a time thue utter offer darkness lay where the light had been then tile the torch reappeared as suddenly as sable wings find engulfed it and in another tiler moment it was plunging down through space in a few minutes ia baul I 1 came I 1 where here it hall had fullen fallen i uttering in tile the sand and picked it up dp again agn ia mure than ever his face was wag like that flint of a ghost his ella cheek was marked by a bleeding wound ula ufa shirt was in shreds on his hieatt his eyes blazed in a way would have startled carlo carla he went to the edge or the voter ate r and bathed his file face und lind hands then lie fie returned to the tire fire and knell beside carla arla he raised lier her hesi head gettly in his bis arms and she lm lit not awaken he fie held it against his breast and kissed her hair curial Car lal he whispered her lips her lushes lashes trembled and a nd opened slowly to unveil her eyes you rou have slept a lung time he said at le leastie lea ast it seemed long and I 1 took a torch and climbed the pile or of rocks again I 1 went higher thim than before so high that I 1 came to a ledge and followed it and then I 1 came to a great in tie the wall and there here t at the end of ita it I 1 saw light light she breathed bren thed yes light fight from the sun I 1 have found a way there was silence then almost without effort it seemed to paul carla crept vat of his arms he knew that something was going with her forever her lace face was whiter than his own what be had dreaded to see lay to in her eyes a thing fighting back bach and crushing the lie glory which had lived to in them tor for a little while the understanding of abat his discovery meant cains came quickly to her and he saw raw a fabric of assembled dreams going to pieces like one of the odd jumble pictures on a screen when its hundred disintegrated parts come came together again they formed CIn Cl alre lrea face waiting for him at the end of the trail of leht sent to guide them back to nn an barthly destiny still unfulfilled and which for a time had passed centuries awny from them TO BB 09 CONTINUED |
