W. C. Morrow

“ She kept her eyes and ears strained for signs and sounds of human life. At intervals she would call aloud with all her might, and after hearing the echo of her voice die away in the canon, wait breathlessly for a response that never came. With eager haste she pushed on. Clambering over fallen trees, heading gullies that she could not leap, wading swift rivulets with which the rapidly melting snow was still ploughing the road, she came at length within view of some men who were clearing the road with axes and mending it with shovels,—the rough, strong, silent, capable men of the mountains. ”

“ Only love and trust me as you have loved and trusted the good father who has ruled us so long and so kindly, and you will find me faithful. This great change comes upon us at a trying time. Neither a king nor a queen can govern a people without their consent and love and confidence. Give me time to show that I am worthy of all that from you. I shall still have the advice of the good man who has placed upon me the crown, and of his able advisers. But I shall trust your own hearts and heads more than all the wisdom of the palace. ”

“ He had devoted weeks of arduous work to the construction of his hut, and that had lent a certain strength to his muscles and buoyancy to his soul. Still, he was hardly more than a shadow of his old self, before his life had been wrecked a year ago, and he had come into the mountains to make a sturdy fight for self-mastery, for the regeneration of whatever shreds of manhood were left within him, and for their patching and binding into a fabric that should take its place in the ranks of men and work out a man’s destiny. ”

“ The convict, whose ghastly pallor, glassy eyes, and gleaming teeth sat like a mask of death upon his face, staggered to his feet.
"You have done it at last! you have broken my spirit. A human word has done what the dungeon and the whip could not do.... It twists inside of me now.... I could be your slave for that human word." Tears streamed from his eyes. "I can't help crying. I'm only a baby, after all—and I thought I was a man."
He reeled, and the warden caught him and seated him in the chair. He took the convict's hand in his and felt a firm, true pressure there. ”

“ If before I sent you to the dungeon, I could have understood the wrong and foreseen its consequences, I would cheerfully have taken my own life rather than raise a hand against you. The lives of us both have been wrecked; but your suffering is in the past—mine is present, and will cease only with my life. For my life is a curse, and I prefer not to keep it."
With that the warden, very pale, but with a clear purpose in his face, took a loaded revolver from a drawer and laid it before the convict.
"Now is your chance," he said, quietly: "no one can hinder you." ”

“ With much spirit she went on as with ease and softness she paced the floor:
“After all she has done, too! I don’t see———”
“Lentala!” I interrupted; “don’t misunderstand. I do like——”
“No, you don’t!” Her voice was growing unsteady. “My poor little Beela! I know she’s a madcap, but she is good, she is kind. She had to be a boy. I made her be one. She couldn’t have done what she did——”
“Lentala, please——”
“——-unless she was a boy. And now she is shamed and humiliated! Don’t let my sweet sister ever know that. It would break her heart. Poor little Beela!” ”

“ I wish you could have heard him say, ‘She’s dead, boys, she’s dead; and by God! they killed her.’ The sound of its agony would have found the heart that was intended to do more than keep you alive with its beating. Do you know what murder is? Do you know the difference between the gross, stupid, brutal murder that in satisfying its coarse lust for blood runs its thick neck into the halter, and the finer, daintier, infinitely more cruel murder that kills with torturing cruelty, and thus outwits the gallows? The blood-murderer is a poor fool, dwarfed in mind and crippled in soul. ”

“ With staring eyes and open mouth he began to retreat towards the door, stammering,—
"I—I can't do it."
"Nonsense, Hippolyte! Don't be a baby. Why, man, it is a case of life and death!"
"But—look at his eyes! he is dying!"
Arnold smiled. "I am not dead, though," he gasped.
"I—I beg your pardon," said Hippolyte.
Dr. Entrefort gave the nervous man a drink of brandy and then said,—
"No more nonsense, my boy; it must be done. Gentlemen, allow me to introduce Mr. Hippolyte, one of the most original, ingenious, and skilful machinists in the country." ”

“ He blazed on me. “Do you love Lentala?”
A fierce tingling raced through me, and dumbness held me.
“She is beautiful and sweet,” he went on. “She is steadfast; she is brave and able. There never was a woman to match her. You are big and strong and brave. She found you. Like finds like. Do you love her as a man loves a woman?”
I fought blindly for wit and words.
“Yes, Sire,” came the thin, even voice of Christopher.
We both turned in surprise. He beamed on us blandly.
“Does she love him as a woman loves a man?” the king asked him. ”

“ In a hopeless stupor she sat, in speechless dread of the blow that she felt must fall. To her dazed attention the avenger himself stood before her in all the terror of infuriated justice free from its leash and plunging forward headlong and irresistible to satisfy its vengeance. Never had she dreamed that a mortal could face a thing so terrible as this man, who, having dragged her from death, and with infinite patience, gentleness, and unselfishness had been nursing her back to health and strength, now stood as the judge and executioner of her naked, trembling, convicted soul. ”

“ The fence was too high to be scaled; but now that the desire for freedom had invaded his being, Moses crushed the pickets with his huge feet and emerged from his prison.
These two, then, were at large. The heavens were lifted higher and the horizon was extended. At a convenient ditch they slaked their thirst, and in an orchard they found ripe apricots; but what can satisfy the hunger of an ape or an idiot? The world was wide and sweet and beautiful, and the exquisite sense of boundless freedom worked like rich old wine in unaccustomed veins. ”

“ He inflated his cheeks and pursed his lips while his goggling eyes roamed, and queer wrinkles came and went in his face.
“The white blood,” he grunted, staring at me. “It accounts for your keenness. The white blood never sleeps. If it is with you, good; if against you,———”
He rose and glared. “Which love you the more, son,” he growled, “the white blood or the brown?”
“Your Majesty sees our color. We came freely and offered our hearts, our arms, and our lives to your Majesty. And it is not forgotten, Sire, that Lentala sent us.” ”

“ I believed that she had formed an attachment for this—this fiddler—bah! Everything in me revolts when I think of it. Here was a girl that was pretty, sweet, gracious, the soul of trust and fidelity, ready to throw herself away upon an unspeakable fiddler! And there was no excuse whatever for it. A score of men adored her,—men of her own station in life,—men of wealth, men of culture, men of strength and character, men of birth, men of consequence in the world. Incredible as it may seem, they passed over other girls far more capable in every way, and sighed for this shy violet. ”