Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 183, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 August 1916 — Page 2

The R E D MIRAGE

I.A.R.WYLIE

‘ a - TUt MATIVt loti, . tIVIIKO VATIM.

BYNOPSIS. —l3 Sylvia Omn«7, her lover, Richard Farquhar, finds, has fallen In love with Captain Arnaud of the Foreign Legion. In Captain Sower’s room Farquhar forces Bower to have Preston's I O U’s returned to him. Farquhar Is helped to his rooms by Oabrlelle Smith. Sower demands an apology. Refused, he forces Farquhar to resign his commission in return for possession of Farquhar’s father’s written confession that he had murdered Sowar’s father. Oabrlelle saves Farquhar from suicide. To shield Arnaud, Sylvia’s llance, Farquhar professes to have stolen war plans and tells the real culprit why he did so. As Richard Nameless he joins the Foreign Legion and sees Sylvia, now Mine. Arnaud, meet Colonel Destlnn. Farquhar meets Sylvia and Oabrlelle, and learns from Corporal Goetz of the colonel's cruelty. Arnaud becomes a drunkard and opium Bmoker. Sylvia becomes friendly with Colonel Destlnn. Arnaud becomes Jealous of Farquhar. Farquhar, on guard at a villa where a dance Is in progress, Is shot down by Arnaud. Arnaud justifies his Insanely Jealous action to Colonel Destlnn. Arnaud goes to a dancing girl who loves him for comfort. Gabrielle meet* Lowe, for whom she had sacrificed position and reputation, and tells him she Is free from him. Sylvia meets Destlnn behind the mosque. Arnaud becomes 111 but Sylvia will not help him, nor interfere for Farquhar.

Farquhar knows Sylvia to be a vain, selfish woman. Yet opportunity apparently comes to him to take Sylvia's love—such as It Is —once more and bend this wife of another man to his purposes. Do you believe he will succumb to the temptation?

CHAPTER Xlll—Continued. “Comrade, In a few days we shall be going south —four hundred of us and thirty officers. The devil goes, too. We arp to build his road for him, so that one day someone will give him a little red ribbon for his buttonhole. It is amusing, is it not? It makes one laugh. They will be able to use our skulls for mile-stones. I always laugh when I think of it Yours will be among them. Have you thought of that?” Farquhar smiled to himself. “I shall not go with you,” his brain answered. “Merde! You will not desert us, comrade? We need you. We count on you. Four hundred men and thirty officers! How simple! We shall go so docilely. We shall march on and on. forty kilometers a day, right to the edge of the desert, and then one fine morning you shall blow the reveille and the thirty officers will go on sleeping, and we shall leave them there — and follow you wherever you lead, ‘against the Arabs, against the devil himself, right through Morocco —to freedom! Comrade, you are a brave Englishman. We trust you. We will bear and suffer anything if you will lead us. If only a dozen of us get through we shall bless you. No evil can be worse than this. Death is for all of us sooner or later, and we would rather die as free men under you than as rats—” Farquhar struggled to free himself. "Duty!” he said sharply and^clearly. He thought he heard a sigh and a curse—farther away now—and the shadow lifted. There were the stars once more, their pnrrf 'serenity unchanged, and the white-glowing minarets lifting their lace-work of dreams high up into the light as of their inspiration. It was then that Farquhar . aaw her. He ground his teeth together ao that he Bhould not call her, and instead prayed—- “ God keep her—oh, God help her!” It had not been more than a breath, the first utterance of an anguished sense of failure, but she beard it, for she came to him and knelt beside him. He felt her hand touch his forehead and glide swiftly over his helpless limbs. "Sylvia!” { Her hands touched his wrists, and in answer the dull glowing fire burst out afresh and shot up along his limbs, burning deep into bis brain, so that for a moment earth and sky became an endless blazing furnace. Then when' the flame died down again be knew that her touch had set him free. He lay still, the cramped half-paralyzed body stretched out in the exhaustion of relief, and -she bent over him, peer- . log into the quiet face with passionate anxiety. "Bichard!” she whispered imperatively. "Can you bear me? Do you know me?”

He looked up at her. In the pale supernatural twilight which hovered over the plateau his features bore that look of white transparency which belongs to death, but his eyes, black under the straight resolute brows, were deliriously alive. They were lifted to hers, but gazed beyond her intently and without recognition. “I know you,” he said. “I saw yon coming. I tried not to call, but you must have heard my praying for you. Did you know I needed you ?” “Yes,” she answered. Very gently she raised his dark head, so that It rested against her knee, and passed her handkerchief over his bloodstained lips. “We must be very quiet,” she whispered. “No one has seen me—no one must see me. Will they come to see you again tonight?” “No one will come to me again.” It was very still. His hand groped for hers and held it with feverish strength. “It was an act of friendship,” he gasped. “I understand —you were thinking of those other days—long ago —and you were merciful. You had judged and passed sentence —and then you forgave. I am glad—it was like y OU —like my dreams of you—” “In your dreams did I pass sentence?” she Interrupted In the same low tone. “Yes —you remember —out there In the churchyard. What you said then — it has haunted me like a curse. ‘I wish to God I had never met you, Richard!’” “The woman who said that was cruel and foolish,” she said. “She didn’t understand.” “And now?” “If I do not understand everything, at least I have still my-faith.” “Faith? In whom? An outcast without name or honor?” “You are not without name or honor. You may have strained both in that first defeat—l po not know how or why—but you have not lost them. They are yours still. I believe that they will be yours always.” “You know that? You believe that?” “I know.” Her arms were about him; she held his exhausted, tortured frame in a strong tenderness. “If I had not known I would not have come here'to you. Only the best of us can fall from great heights. Only the bravest can pick themselves up and begin the long, heart-breaking climb back.” She lifted her white face to the sky, hiding the blinding tears. All was still again. The black grotesque shadow of the sentry crossed the fading line of campfires, and she crouched lower. He passed on indifferently. “You are right,” Farquhar went on at last. “That was what I prayed that you should understand. I had failed, utterly, ignominiously, but not ignobly. I can’t explain. I shall never he able to; but I meant to go out of your life and leave you happy. It was all I thought of. Can you believe that?" “I do believe it,” she answered hoarsely. “Thank you.” He smiled a little.® As though overtaken by a sudden irresistible thought, he dragged himself up and his eyes, sightless and yet tragically conscious, sought her face.

“We Must Go on at Whatever Cost— We Must Go on.”

“That night—at the Villa Bernotto’s,” he stammered —“was it for me that yon risked so mnch?” “Yes,” she answered simply. “It was for you.” “What had you come to tell me?” “That the woman who had made you suffer was unjust and unworthy of you. She knew nothing of life or pain or temptation. She judged like a child.” - “Have you learned so much in these few weeks?” “At least I know now enough to judge gently.” He groaned in bitter recollection. “That is the worst —to know that was all useless. Oh, Sylvia, it was all a terrible mistake. I should have fought for you—l never should have yielded place to that poor scoundrel —” “No, no, Richard, not a scoundrel, but a man tempted and suffering and maddened like yourself.” His head dropped back against her shoulder. “My God —what irony that I should Judge—” He seemed to drag his fevered thoughts together" with a supreme effort “What are you doing here?” be demanded with the old imperiousness. “How did you come here? If Is not safe. If they found you—” “they will not find me.” she had

THE EVENING REPUBLICAN, RENSSELAER, INP.

taken something from the pocket her mantle and held it to his lips. “Drink this I" she commanded tersely. “It’s of no good.” “I wish it. You must have strength to listen to me.” He yielded and lay still, his bright delirious eyes fixed intently on the long white track of stars above him, as though it was from thence that her voice came to him. “It is not likely that we shall meet again,” she went on rapidly, “and I want you to remember what I am saying—as long as you live. I am not unhappy, Richard —remember that. I have gambled away my heritage in a mad hour, and I have no right even to sorrow. I love you. I thank God that you came Into my life. Remember that!” She bent over him and with her handkerchief brushed the sweat of breaking fever from his forehead. “Can you hear me still, Richard —can you still understand me?” “I understand,” he answered. “You must live —for my sake. lam only a poor human being—l cannot do without you on my earth. And then—you cannot throw down your weapons now.” , He started, as though at some faroff, familiar sound. “That is what "the little gray lady would have said. ‘We cannot throw down our weapons in the first skirmish.’ I have often thought of that. Tell her—l have not forgotten.” “I will tell her.” He was silent a moment. Then hi 9 eyes opened fully, and a smile of brilliant hope, as of a man who has laid strong hands on an adverse fate, flashed over his wan features. “We must go on—at whatever cost — we must go on,” he cried hoarsely. And with a swift change of tone, infinitely pathetic in its sheer joy and gratitude: “How beautiful you are, how beautiful—” That was all. His voice, roused for that brief moment in the strength of a reborn happiness, passed like a ripple on the face of the deep silence. Very gently she slipped the long cloak from her shoulders and laid it over him. He did not move. The long-drawn-out seconds became minutes, the minutes —hours. One by one the great host of watchers above them flashed out, leaving a blank waste of darkness. A chill wind, sand-laden from the south, brushed against her face. Still she knelt there, with the man’s unconscious head against her knees, her eyes fixed in proud strong patience on the western sky, where slowly, almost imperceptibly, the dawn was breaking. In all the glory of reawakened life the pale-gold heralds of the morning rose above the distant horizon and, gathering warmth and deeper fire as they swept the desert broke In one mingled flood against the topmost minarets, which glowed back in splendid answer. The bivouac fires had long since died out, and the sickly ghost of night crept back into the groves of olive. From the high tower of the mosque a white-robed figure greeted the one God in solemn thanksgiving—- “ Holiness to thee, O God, praise be to thee. Great is thy name!” Then came the gay, joyous call of a bugle and the clatter of arms. The woman rose slowly to her feet. She stood for a moment facing the grandeur of rising light; then she bent down, and with swift strong hands bound the unresisting figure into a semblance of its first helplessness. Stern indignation blazed in her eyes as she lifted them for a moment, but she neither flinched nor hesitated. Only as a stifled groan broke from the bloodless lips she bent lower‘and kissed him. “Forgive me. God bless you, dear,” He smiled faintly, as though in apology, in weak unconscious gratitude, then, sighing, passed from stupor into a peaceful dreamless sleep. CHAPTER XIV. The End of Ramazan. On the outskirts of Sidi-bel-Abbes half a dozen Arabs stood and waited patiently. They had stood on the same spot since the hour of sunset, watching the pale emerald change to deepest sapphire, and had neither moved nor spoken to one another. In their spotless burnooses they had looked like statues placed there as sentinels over the gayly lighted, bustling town behind them. Now, as slowly, gracefully, the thin circle of the new moon rose above the distant line of palms, the foremost Arab bowed himself to the ground. “The fast is over. Praise be to Allah, the all-merciful.” From the distance came the dull regular thud of horse’s hoofs. A moment later a spahi, mounted on a foamflecked, blood-stained horse, which reeled in its gallop, burst through their midst and swept on toward ths gates of the fortifications. As he passed he dragged himself up in his saddle and whirled his flint-lock In a semicircle about his head. “Ramazan Is over!” he gasped. “Ouled Nail has risen—” The last words were lost in |he swirl of wind which clung to his horse’s heels. The half a dozen Arabs turned their glance for a last time to the sky. Behind the brooding, Impenetrable gravity there burned up a controlled half-smiling exultation. Then, still silent, they dispersed swiftly in the direction of the town.

The Arab* ready for revolt This gives the Legiorv aires an opportunity to successfully mutiny against their officers. A strong man like Richard Nameless can lead the movement and draw to him a large force. Will he do so?

(TO BE CONTINUED^

WAILINGS OF A WIDOWER

So long as a gown isn't too small a woman can build herself to fit it Marriage Is a grand thing for some men—furniture dealers, for example. ' Life Is too short for a man to do all the things his wife expects him to do. It takes a widow who is fishing for No. 2 to distinguish between a nibble and a bite.

SAWED-OFF SERMONS

Shakespeare says: “Conscience doth make cowards of ns all.” William evidently never had any dealings with lawyers. A man knows all about human nature that is worth knowing if he knows that other men aren’t any more foolish than he Is. If three years of matrimony doesri’t put a man wise, the sooner he is carted off to the foolish house the better. If a minister Is tired after letting out a long-winded sermon he at least has the sympathy of nine-tenths of the congregation. Beware of the man whose debts don’t worry him. He probably would swipe your umbrella If he saw It in the vestibule of a church. The world seldom gives a man more than he deserves, but many a man who deserves a term in jail is overlooked by the gra'nd jury.—lndianapolis Star.

BRILLIANTS

Any mind that is capable of a real sorrow is capable of good. —Mrs. Stowe. Strength is born in the deep silence of long-suffering hearts; not amidst joy.—Hemans. If you are going to do "a good thing, do It now, if you are going to do a mean thing, wait till tomorrow. —Anon. He who is false to present duty breaks a thread in the loom, and will find the flaw when he may have forgotten its cause. —Anon. We deceive ourselves when we fancy that only weakness needs support. Strength needs it far more. A straw or a feather sustains itself long in the air.—Mme. Swetehine.

LANGUAGE OF THE COAT-TAIL

Coat-tail covered with dust: “I was interviewed by her papa’s boot.” Coat-tail with large open-faced tear on the bias: “I scaled the back fence.” Coat-tail ripped up to the collar: “I had two leap year proposals simultaneously.” Coat-tail resembling a porous plaster full of holes: “I didn’t get shot at the hardware store.” Coat-tail with lower half section missing indicates: “I have been unexpectedly introduced to her papa’s bull pup.” 1

FROM OUR NEW DICTIONARY

Triplets—Little blessings that few people can appreciate. Water—A nonintoxicating beverage that makes barrels tight. Obligation —A gun that makes a loud report when it is discharged. Death —Often a relief from the troubles a man stirs up for himself on earth. Foolish —The woman who puts a special delivery stamp on a letter and gives It to her husband to mail.

DO YOU KNOW THAT—

It Is .just as easy to acquire eloquence as to spill beans? In proportion, a coconut holds more milk than a cow? You’re never fined for speeding on the road to success? The real need of the country Is an electric lawn mower? The sky Is bigger than the sun, but doesn’t give so much light?

BABBLINGS OF A BACHE-LOR

A woman’s vanity begins with her hat and ends with her shoes. The woman who has a poor figure may have ways of making up for it. •*,» When a bachelor wants to Jolly a muffled woman he tells her that he’s sorry he did not meet her before it was too late.

HORSE A FRIEND OF MAN

Ask Yourself the Question, How Have You Dealt With Faithful Animal Grown Old? You may have Jiad a favorite horse sometime, and it may have grown old and the folks may have advised selling or turning It out to die, maybe, Erasmus Wilson writes In the Pittsburgh ' Gazette-Times. Could yon, or did you give consent to thus disposing of your old friend? How wquld you like to meet such an old frlefi<f on the avenue geared In heavy, cumberous harness to a rickety coalcart loaded to the limit of his strength to move, and to hear the coarse commands of the unfeeling driver and the cruel cuts of the whip when he was straining his stiffened joints and weakened muscles until he seemed ready to totter and fall? But then you might not recognize him on account of the prominence of his bones, the roughness of his coat and his slavish and heartbroken appearance. We can hardly recognize in a weary, shambling, ill-kept brute the once sleek, sprightly, prancing steed that was our pet and pride. Maybe it is well that we do not know them when we see them in their sadly changed conditions. Ask the veteran cavalryman about his favorite horse and he’ll tell you things that will bring a lump into your throat. Many a time and oft, perhaps, they endured storms and braved dangers on picket posts, faced death in mad and turbulent rivers, occupied a. connnbn bed on the ground, foraged for food to stay their hunger and shared the last handful of parched corn or piece of hardtack. And he will tell of the times his trusty steed saved him from capture or death, or bore him into the thick of the battle and maybe fell a victim to some merciless bullet or shell, or maybe both were wounded together — it to die in mercy, he to live and suffer on. - The old trooper is never willing, much less anxious, to part with the horse t£at lias borne him through trying campaigns, and to which he feels so greatly indebted. No doubt this was the feeling of the Arab whom Mrs. Caroline E. S. Norton has so deftly and effectivelysketched in the poem that made her famous —“The Arab’s Farewell to His Steed,” which concludes as follows: When last I saw him drink! Away! The fevered dream is o’er; I could not live a day, and know- that we should meet no more; They tempted me, my beautiful! for hunger’s power Is strong; They tempted me, my beautiful! but I have loved too long; Who said that I had given thee up? Who said that thou wert sold? ’Tls false, ’tis false! my Arab steed! I flung them back their gold. Thus, thus, I leap upon thy back, and scour the distant plains— - < Away! Who overtakes us now shall claim thee for his pains.

The “Cullud Gemmen” Speaks.

A heavy shadow in the deep gloom of the recess approaching the bar became animated and presently strolled out into the lobby wearing a delegate’s badge. He couldn’t escape. A pad and pencil backed by a reporter confronted him. “Is you one o’ dem writers dat pulls dis cuilud gemmen’ stuff ev’y, day in de newspapahs?” grinned the delegate, evidently overjoyed at the prospect of an interview. “Sure,” said the reporter. “That’s me. Pretty good—eh?” “Well, sir, you are not the correspondent I’m looking for. If I am to be interviewed send one of your more mature men, who elucidate the flank movements of the-* old guard and analyze the effect of a great man’s dyspepsia on the vote of a delegation.” Whereupon the shadow faded into the deeper gloom of the streets;—* Chicago Tribune.

Censorship Dragon.

Let American people stand in fear and trembling of the eventful outcome of the insidious growth of censorship powers. Censorship is no fantastical bugaboo —it is a real national peril, because the day may not be far off when censors, under the shadow of the American flag of Independence, will be empowered by legislative enactment to foist their individual whims, hobbies or prejudices on the suffering public. It is not beyond our imagination to see a fanatical functionary, with the title of censor, who is a vegetarian, forcing the people of his city to abstain from meat. Other censors with similar whims might censor tea and coffee, cigars and cookbooks. Already it is reported ministers are sensing the possibility of their pulpits being ruthlessly purged of objectionable texts. —New York Telegram.

Tobacco Aids Soldiers.

The beneficent effects of tobacco at the front were affirmed by the Lancet as long ago as 1870, when the question was being discussed in connection with the Franco-Prussian war. “The soldier,” it was said, “wearied with long marches and uncertain rest, obtaining his food how and when he can, with his nervous system always in a state of tension from the dangers and excitement he encounters, finds that his cigar or pipe enables him to sustain fatigue with comparative equanimity. . . . For the wounded it is probable that tobacco has slight anodyne and narcotic properties that enable the sufferer to sustain pain better during the day, and to obtain sleep during the night.”—London Chronicle

Preparedness.

“How did; you get your motorcycle go far in advance of, the other orders?” <•1 seized the cycle-logical moment to ask for it.”

TRUE AT THE LAST

Wolf-Dog Deserted Master, But Still Loved Him. Answered “Call -of Hla Fathers,” Though He Proved Loyal When Loyalty Meant Death by the Fangs of Hla Pack. He had been called Wolf since puppyhood. He stood nearly forty inches, with a small ragged, rall-like body, and unusually long legs that ended In great, soft, padlike feet. Jack Stern, Steve Wormell’s partner, used to say that the dog could not turn round in their “two-byfour” cabin without knocking over the table and chairs and seriously endangering the stove and other furniture. One-evening, as Steve and Jack sat playing a game of cribbage in their ranger cabin, a wolf howled lugubriously from the mountain side. After a moment came the /answer; then another caught up the call, and another, until the lonesome wail echoed from mountain top to mountain top. Suddenly there came a howl, nearer and more deep-throated. Stern opened the door. “Come here, Steve!” he said, and the ranger stepped to his side. On a small, treeless mound, not far from the cabin; sat Wolf. He was squatting on his haunches, with his nose pointed toward the sky, while from his throat came a cry quite un» like his usual howl. “It’s the call of his fathers, Steve,” said Jack. “Some day you’ll -have no dog; he’ll be gone with the pack.” Steve laughed at the idea. He had brought Wolf, an awkward, bench-leg-ged puppy, out to the ranger cabin in a sack; the dog had always been faithful and contented with his lot. But one morning in the spring Wolf was missing. At first Steve clung to the hope that Wolf would return when the “running” season was over. He had heard of dogs doing that. But spring! merged into summer, and summer into fall, yet the dog did not come back. Then they began to hear that Wolf had been seen running at the head of a small band of wolves, although they never found a man who had actually seen him', About Christmas time, when the snow w-as deeper than for many winters past, prowling bands of wolves began to come down near the camp. One day Steve found that a large bull elk had been killed within a mile of camp. Signs of the struggle were to be seen for a hundred yards round. Near the scattered bones of the elk were the disembowled remains of two wolves. A little farther along a young cow elk had fallen beneath the fangs of the mountain bandits. And at each kill Steve found a large track, twice the size of that made by a common wolf. When the snow had crusted so that it would bear up the weight of a man, Steve threw his rifle across his arm and walked over to the breaks of the Grande Ronde. He was nearing the broken lands when the sound of a running pack came to his ears. A moment later a small band of wolves, perhaps fifteen in number, burst from the timber, running toward him. And at their ;■ head rdn Wolf. The ranger forgot his danger. He cried, “Wolf, don’t you know me?” The sound of his voice brought the great dog to a standstill, and the pack stopped with him. Nose in the air, sides aquiver, he stood a moment; then, with a low bay of recognition, he sprang toward his one-time master. The pack, evidently mistaking their leader’s intention, likewise rushed at Steve. And the next instant, with his gun clubbed, he was in the midst of a snarling, snapping mass of faminecrazed wolves. When Jack arrived on the scene he found Steve sitting in the snow, with the shaggy head of Wolf pillowed In his lap. Around him, with their mangy pelts torn and bloody, lay half a dozen dead wolves. The ranger’s clothing was torn to shreds and one arm and leg were a mass of cuts and gashes; but there were tears in his eyes. “He fought for me, Jack," he said, pressing the stiffening lids over the glazed eyes of the dead hound. “He gave his life for me. How he fought! And against his own blood, too. Yonder lies one of his own pups. Why shouldn’t I love him?” —Youth’s Companion.

What, Indeed!

It was a very serious conversation that was overheard by a number of passengers of a street car the other night. Two young girls of the “giddy” type were conversing about the possibilities of the United States getting into trouble with Mexico. “Well, I certainly would hate to see all the American soldiers go down into Mexico,” one girl said. “Why?” her companion inquired. \Becnuse, while the soldiers were down in Mexico what would prevent the Europeans from coming over here and getting us girls?”—Columbus (O.) Dispatch.

Price of Boll Weevils.

In one of the counties in Alabama a cent apiece Is being offered for boll weevils, and they are cheap at that price. A boll weevil, if let alone, will not talfe long to destroy several dol.Jars’ worth of cotton, and If be can he disposed of for a cent the Investment is a good one.—Memphis News-Scime* tar.