Democratic Sentinel, Volume 13, Number 10, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 March 1889 — Page 6

Bridgets decision. SW ■ the postC— \ I 7 man, there 111 is coming t." T V I X? With some <~ r> z I word, I /« JI hope, for , That Pat Reil(P ly 18 re- ’ / ir<\ turning SS»- j A itW From hia i rip across the i* in 11* 8ea ’ 4 IVK Where he went l°rtni ißlt H I ' z> Emerald Isle I wIL> t Ill' •, <- Ere he -went he L ’ fi ■" ; pledged his 3’ ikl » n.A honor VI H That to me h e -would —» iSI 0 * iU 1 betrue. fi <- I A’I T> /a J •AP- 5 Not a word has / i >; -••' Reilly sent Z-rk ™. Months have / ’ / | passed, and ’ / | im so sad; A tiny message by the cable, Sure would make my heart so glad. Tim, the postman, wants to wed me, Says he loves me more than life, Any time that I would say so, Ee would take me for his wife. • *»»**• Nothing but a note from mother; Indade, I’ll no longer wait; I’ll accept the faithful postman, And Pat Reilly’ll be too late. •-Texas Siftings.

GROPING IN DARKNESS.

BY JESSIE ETHEL.

BEAUTIFUL girl of eighteen sat writing a delicately scented note wt a table near the open window of the tower room of an antiquated >but pretentious mansion, located on the lake shore

a few miles from the city of Chicago, and hidden by heavy vines in the garden below a dark-eyed man of sinister face was watching her. His surveillance was apparently unsuspected, for the maiden seemed absorbed in her task, and her rich color came and went as she read the few lines she had written in a low, shy tone, sweet and mellow as golden beads dropped into a crystal dish. “My love,” it read simply, “our dream is ended! For the last time, meet me at the trysting place—Raven Cliff.”

It was directed “Victor,” and it was signed “Adrienne.” She folded the note over and over, until it was small and compact as a lozenge. Then she took up a piece of narrow silk ribbon, secured it round and round the missive, leaving the long ends free, and went to a wicker cage in wni h, pe king at the bars as if pining and fretting for liberty, was a snow-white dove of perfect plumage. It Muttered, yet lingered in her grasp as she gently urew it irom the cage and attached the note to its neck by securing the ribbon about it. Then she caressed it and set it free, with the sighing words: “Take a kiss to my own, swift mes senger—the last mission of a hopeless love!”

She saw the carrier dove pierce the ether, straight wing ng its flight into the face of the dazzling sun. watched it a speck beyond thicket and dale, and then, leaning her fair head on the table, wept a < if her heart would break. “Confu-ion!” A fierce, hissing anath•ema, ground out by the lurking tpy in the shrubbery below. The word seemed to expresi the pent-up hatred and rage of a baffled, chagr.ned plotter." “So this is her means of communicating with the man I hate!” went on the harsh, grinding voice. “Locks and ■bribed servants do not avail—love laughs at obstacles! Shall I tell her father of this? No, no! I will wait! I will watch! I will learn all! Tonight ends all. With another day, doves, lover, and mansion will be many leagues from Adrienne—and he—revenge ! ere my plans are consummated. ” An hour went by. The girl had not -changed her position. Suddenly there was a rustling sound at the window, a soft, cooing note, and a second dove, steel-blue in color, flutters I to her bosom, and her trembling hands unloosed the return message secured at its wing. With swimming eyes the girl kissed the few brief words that told her that her lover would meet her as desired. Then she placed the dove in its cage and left the room. The man in the garden smiled a sinister, cruel smite, as he lit a cigar, wandered from the house, crossed a lawn, threaded a narrow, daisy-starred path that led to a bluff overlooking the lake, and, secreting himself amid some bushes, waited, and waited, as might a fowler, sure of his prey and his snare alike. Dusk came down with slow, trailing ; garments of gray, sweeping the red from the sky and the gold from the forest aisles. A second f irm, that of a ’man graceful as an Apollo, reached the summit of Haven Cliff and lingered there. Then a quivering form, in light, pretty muslin, came to meet him. The soft caresses were fearful, the tones that spoke tremulous. The cruel eyes of the watcher glowed like lurid flame, as he heard the bold, cheering words - of the lover, the desponding accents of the girl. “No, no, Victor!” she quavered; “better let love die in sadness, grief, hopelessness, than add to it some dreaded token of revengs that will break my heart. It is useless to appeal to my father; this man Despard has him completely under his influence. He has promised him that I shall wed him, and Despard has induced him

to leave here. Should they go tonight ” “To-night!” echoed Victor, with a gasp of dismay. “I must know if they do. They shall not bear you away, and I never know to what misery they have condemned you. Promise, if they seek to leave, you will send a message—the carrier-dove ?” “I promise, but of what avail ? Would you follow us? Then Despard will do you some deadly injury. As it is, he thirsts for revenge on the man I can never cease to love. Victor! Victor! my heart will break!” Sighs, kisses, tears, a last “Promise! you will send me the message?” aud then the lovers parted, and Despaid clenched his teeth venomously. “Torture!” he groaned out. “Ah, my lady, you shall leave to-night, an.l you, Victor Dane—look your last on the love you stole from me, for my revenge is very near!” One hour later, a broken, helpless creature, Adrienne Dacre, stole to the tower room. Her face was a pall of despair. She knew the worst. By specious promises, baneful influence, Despard had induced her father to leave at midnight for his own home in the far West, where troublesome rivals would no longer annoy, and Adrienne would, amid new scenes, forget the “romanticfolly” that, teemed a bar to a favorable union.

Adrienne appealed to her father vainly. He seemed completely in Despard's power, and carelessly averred that time weuld bring her to consider a wealthy lover far more preferable than one who had a fortune and a name yet to earn. Outside, a revolver in his clasp, just beyond the garden wail, stood Despard, his basilisk glance fixed on the lighted tower-room. “If she seeks to send a message to Dane I will prevent it!” he hissed. “It would bring him here, and Dacre’s whim to remain or treat with him would be fatal to my plans. Ha! she dares. ” Yes, the casement opened. A dove, love-winged, missive-freighted, flew out into the night. The cruel marksman steadied his wrist. A quick report m ngled in echo with a despairing wp.il at the window; the dove circled, ree'ed, and, limp and disabled, disappeared amid the foliage of a great tree.

“I am revenged!” The speaker wits Despard, and his dark face was aglow with brutal triumph, as he glared down on his sec-, ond helpless victim of the night. Two miles across the country he had gone stiaight fiom the Dacre mansion, to the small villa where Victor Dane made h!s summer home.

Dane was a chemist, high in esteem among scientists, and he had filled up a room, a kind of laboratory, where he worked and experimented with retort, acid and poisons. Here he had received his messages from Adrienne, two small windows looking north just showing the turrets of the Dacre mansion.

Lost in a. reverie, "he had not heard stealthy footsteps on the stairs. The door had opened, and his rival Despard, dealing him a heavy blow, had forced him senseless to the floor. When he awoke to consciousness, Victor found himself in an arm chair, tied to it with strong cords, hand and foot, and Despard glowering wickedly down upon him. “I said look your last on your love!” he hissed, venomously. “Victor Dane, this night I carry away wife and fortune and you. Ah! I have a slow, pleasant death for you! Gigged, bound, count the minutes as they tick away, and close your eyes to waken no more. lam revenged!” In mute horror \ i dor saw the preparations made for his murder. Near by was a large retort that held a deadly, noxious gas. His rival knew of its death-dealing qualities, for he had shut the two windows closelv, turned on the nozzle, and the air of 1126 ropm began to grow dense. “Half an hour—an hour!” hissed Despard, his face like that of a demon, “and I return to find you dead. I release you, remove your bonds, and when you are discox ered people will say that you fell a victim—ha! ha!—to your love for science! ” He left the room as he spoke. Victor Dane, pale as death, tried to force his bonds. They loosened, but, alas! the insidious gas robbed mind and frame of strength. His senses reeled, his brain seemed bursting. Tap! tap! tap! At ths window a fluttering sound greeted his dull hearing. Oh! would help not come!—the base assassin relent! “Adrienne, my love!” and then Tap! tap! tap! Crash!—but the limp, palded form was motionless. “Saved! With a gasp Victor Dane opened his eyes. That horrible throbbing and choking was gone. The air was still rank and dense, but mingled with it was a cui rent of cool ar, pure as crystal as it fought the vapor with which it mingled. With a prodigious effort Victor loosened his hands. He was free an instant later. He stared at a shattered pane of glass. He picked up a warm, soft object lying beneath the window. He staggered, it in his hand, to the stairway, to the lighted study, below. The dove!—wounded, it had faltered from the shot of the cruel Despard. Then, winging its flight painfully homeward, it had tapped at its accustomed window, shattered the glass in its frantic efforts to enter, and had saved the life of its master. “Faithful dove! the message brought at the cost of love!” murmured Victor, brokenly. “Despard, woula-be assas-

sin, the law shall prevent you now!” He ran hatless from the place. He stopped at the tiist house. The sheriff of the county r'sided there. When Victor Dane again came forth it wa? with a companion, commissioned to arrest Despard for attempted murder. At the Dacre mansion they found its owner, cross, whimsical, impatient; Adrienne, veiled and in tears; the trunks pa-bed, the carriage waiting for Despard. But no Despard! Dacre stared incredulously story of the sheriff. Ha believed that Despard, affrighted : at his crime, had fled, and looked as it he was glsd of it. He only scowled when A ictor, leaving with the sheriff, i said to Adrienne in fervent tones: “Courage! Do not be prevailed on i to leave here under any circumstances. *Despards plans shall fail, believe me!” They sought Despard everywhere. At morn, wearied and unsuccessful, V ctor and the sheriff returned to his home. They entered the laboratory. "Look!” cried the sheriff in a startled tone, pointing to the floor. “Despard!” “Yes, and dead!” Dead, and horribly disfigured! Beside him lay an overturned jar, recognized by Victor as having contained a deadly acid. Despard had evidently returned the preceding night to remove all traces of murder from his victim. He had stumbled in the darkness. The fall had probably stunned him, and, his face falling in the liquid, he had inhaled its noxious poison and been suffocated. Dacre confessed that he had been duped and deluded, and did not withhold his consent to the happy marriage that took place a month later. And, treasured among relics, love tokens and bijouterie more than aught else by happy Adrienne and Victor, is the dove, rendered almost lifelike by an art preservative—the beautiful carrier dove that saved Victor Dane’s life.

Sugar-Making a Chinese Invention.

The Chinese, who invented almost everything before anybody else heard of it, claim to be the original discoverers of the process of sugar-making, and it is said that sugar was used in China as long ago as 3,000 years. This is misty, but the fact is well established that it was manufactured in China under the Tsin dynasty, 200 years at least before the Christian era began. India has put forward a claim for priority of invention, but the probability is that the Hindoos learned the art of sugar-making from the Chinese, and that through them the knowledge finally spread to the Western nations. Nearchus, when sent by Alexander on an exploring voyage on the Indus, brought back reports of “honey” which was made by the Asiatics from Cane without the help of bees. At this time neither the Greeks nor the Jews nor the Babylonians had any knowledge of sugar, but later the art of making the artificial “honey” became known and practiced, though its progress and development was exceedingly slow. It was prescribed as a medicine by Galen in A. D. 150, and up to the seventeenth century it had become nothing more than a costly luxury, to be used only on special occasions. Even as late as the beginning of the eighteenth century the annual consumption of sugar in Great Britain had reached only 20,000,000 pounds, whereas it is now more than 2,000,000,000 pounds. Refined sugar was not made in England till 1659. The art of refining was learned by a Venetian merchant from the Saracens, who sold the secret to him for 100,000 crowns.— Good Housekeeping.

Never Tired.

When this country was first settled, there was an impression among the colonists that the Indians had no intelligence or craft in their relations with the white men. The latter soon found, however, that this was not the case. Some of the farmers attempted to make farm servants of the Indians, but found that they had a propensity to “get tired” so soon after they began work that their services were of little value. One day a farmer was visited by a stalwart Indian, who said: “Me want work.” “No,” said the farmer, “vou will get tired.” “No, no,” said the Indian, “me never get tired!” The farmer, taking his word for it, set the Indian at work and went away about some other business. Toward noon he returned to the place and found the Indian sound asleep under a tree. “Look here, look here,” shouted the farmer, shaking the Indian violently, “you told me that you never got tired, and yet here you are stretched out on the ground!” “Ugh!” said the Indian, rubbing his eyes and slowly clambering to his feet, “if me not lie down, me get tired like the rest!”— Exchange.

Ungainly Man.

Man is an ungainly creature at the best. His head is an irregular spheroid; his eyes are not alike or of equal efficiency; his whiskers won’t grow uniformly. One shoulder is higher than the other, one hand or foot larger than the other—and this on opposite sides—his hips (if he has any) are unequal in shape. The calves of his legs are not twins in anything but age, and without his tailor, hatter, and bootmaker he is a very sorry-looking animal. As fpr women—well, this article is not written to discuss their physical crookedness. If it was it would not be half the length that it is.— San Francisco Chronicle. A charity bawl; —800-hoo! Gimme a penny, mister *

A MIGHTY HUNTER IS HE

BILL NYE'.i ADVENTIIV 8 IN THE MINNESOTA Jc-NcLC:?. tie Penetrates th « Tropic it Depths of the Great Northwest o > the B ick n. n Elephant. and Meets with Severe! 1 hr Ilin;; Adventures.

accustomed to ii. The eye sparkles, the step is elastic, and the rich blood mantles to the nose as the gayly caparisoned droska speeds blithely through the palmetto groves of the thrifty Occident. Many Southern people come to St. Paul and Minneapolis, it is said, in order to escape the rigors of their own winter. The banana belt extending from Duluth to Winnipeg reminds one of tropical Africa. Last week Mr. Riley Haggard and I started out for a little quiet elephant shooting in the country. Bidding farewell to the concierge at the hotel, we packed our heavy express rifles and smooth-bore elephant guns, penetrated as far as the sleeping-car could convey us, and bidding farewell to our faithful Wan Wenga, who caressed us both with a whisk brcom to the value cf 20 scudi, we hired an elephant apiece and began to penetrate the jungle, preceded by our trusty bird-dog. At the kraal or livery stable, where we engaged our e'ephants, we were told that game was plenty about thirty miles acres; the dingelow, and that in a small forest of jmgsnag trees and hoola bushes quite a covey of quigga and elephants had b?en scared up by a Boer who had penetiated the jungle ac companied by his brokje or clog. The first night we camped beneath the shade of a Vienna breadfruit tree on the borders of the Karroo, and, preventing the escape of our trusty elephants by attaching their trunks, we began to prepare our evening meal. I lead the directions from a book of African travel, and my faithful comrade, Mr. Riley Haggard, did the cooking. First refreshing ourselves with a long draught from a gourd of spooniu from Peoria, maiked 1842 so-called because it is placed on the marset eighteen hours and forty-two minutes after it is made, our faithful gun-bear-er, Ylang Y lang, began to carve the bultong, Meiboss, and jerk, d muskrat for the even ng meal. Making a bright tire of karroo bushes and fresh train figs, a wad of mealies was soon simmering on the coals, while the odor of Cincinnati bultong pervaded the tropical forest. Ylang Ylang, our faithful valet, who has made his name a household word because of his search after Schwatka and “One Night” Stanley, said that according to the books on African exploration it was now time to bed down the elephants. After doing this he returned and proceeded with the cuisine. We had hardly swallowed our supper, and Mr. Riley Haggard was about to climb a date palm to secure a few luscious lecture-dates, when our ears were saluted by a most unearthly and ear-piercing roar from the heart of the jungle. At this moment our faithful Ylang Ylang came in, with eyes stick-

A-HUNTING WE WILL GO.

ing out like a sore thumb, to announce that our bird dog had flushed a large Abyssinian lion. Hurriedly putting a little Mayonnaise dressing on our faithful Viang Viang, we sent him out to parley with the lion while we put on our telegraph climbers, and. filling our pockets with bultong, we ascended a Duluth palm tree. We had not long to wait! The wang wanga bushes pat ted and a low, heavyset performing lion crept softly into the open Karroo, preceded at a distance of about three-quarters of an inch by our faithful Viang Viang. As the poor fellow jumped a low Kirdish bush I heard a crunching sound such as I hope never to hear again, and turned away my head rather than see our trusty gun-bearer in the act of backing into a lion. As soon as I could regain my courage by a small nip of spoopju I looked back at the sickening spectacle. All was still save the distant song of the redbreasted blim-blam in the Koojoo bushes.

N the exhilarating Northwest, lcto9: The cold of Minnesota has been g.eat.y exaggerated by rival btates, and though at times the ther- _ inometer lowers it- < ) self in the estimation of society, the kl cold is of such a y. bracing character as to seem almost * oppressively hot to those who are not

Suddenly remembering how I had once seen a lion-tamer make a lion quail, I desc nded ;rom the tree, and taking a small riding-whip with me, I ea.di.-Hi!” ami whipping him across the for legs, in the meantime frequently making the remark "Hi,” I drove him away from there. Out of the kraal, down the sloot or dry watercourse, and across the Karroo lands he sp d, and so on back to Winnipeg, where he joined his congress of rare wild beasts, as I afterward leai ned. Hastily saddling our elephants and sinching them tightly so tha; the howdah could no 1 , slip arou ,d under the stomach of the noble beast, we mounted by means of a freight-car standing near by and returned across the transvaal, whatever that is, and hiring a diligence, we packed our remaining supply of bultong, elephant tusks, spoopju, pemmican, elephant blubber, sacred cow meat, dried yak, Krooliejam, Milwaukee Heidsick, and a glossary of l ard words from Rider Haggard, and took the cars at Stanley Pool, resolving to penetrate still farther into the tropical depths of the Northwest. I had been told by the real estate men both at St. Paul and Minneapolis

NYE AS A LION TAMER.

that the winter here was much like that of Singapore, but I would not have believed it even then if I had not personally tried it.

He Was Not Superstitious.

A well-known jeweler: “I am often asked why I keep that little, old-fash-ioned silver horseshoe in my showcase. It certainly does look out of place among my watches; it would not be at home among the diamonds either, and it would be equally a stranger in the case with the earrings and breast-pins. It was made in my father’s shop in Switzerland about forty years ago, when I was a boy, and I made it. “I made it out of a silver franc after I had been at the bench less than t month. A little French girl gave the coin to me, and, I fashioned this horseshoe with a few tools that my father would allow me to use. It was a breastpin once, and after it was made the girl wore it. About five years afterwards I brought the horsehoe and the French girl to this country with me. She was my wife then. “I had a hard fight with the world at first. We went West. Then we went South. At last we came here. After this we prospered. All this time my wife wore the horseshoe. I shouldn’t say all the time, but most of the time. Once she lost it. The same night my store was burned. The next day a boy brought the pin to me and asked me how much it was worth as old silver. He had found it on the street. I bought it back for five times its value without a question. “Twenty years ago my wife died. Among the last things she did was to ask for this pin. She gave it to me and told me to keep it always. It had been the means of our marrying, and had always brought us good fortune. With two exceptions, it has never passed out of my possession since. “When my eldest daughter was married she wore the pin on her wedding dress. She left for Europe the next day, and forgot to return it to me before she started. She had not been gone a week before my cashier disappeared with $5,000 in cash and left a large deficit in my bank balance. He was my nephew, and would have been my partner some day. During that month the grasshopper plague destroyed the crops in Kansas and I lost several thousand more in bad debts. lam not superstitious, but I cabled to my daughter for the pin and it came back by the first steamer.

“The next exception was five years ago last summer. In cleaning out the show-cases one morning a new clerk threw the pin among the scraps in the workshop to be melted up, flunking it had no value. When I missed it, it could not be found. The shop was thoroughly searched. “I advertised for it, offering a liberal reward, and my porter returned it to me and claimed the SSO. He had found it, so he said, in the ash-box in front of the store. This was one week after I had lost it. During that time my daughter’s husband was killed in a railroad accident in Illinois. Since then this old horseshoe is in the case, wheio it has lain for twenty long years. Every day and every night it goes into the safe. “No, I am not superstitious, no one can accuse me of that weakness; but it would take more money than most men have to buy that pin. I don’t believe in luck. I know that losing the pin had nothing to do with my disasters, but I won’t part with it all the same.”—Jewelers' Weekly.