s U - o o T5he Bondmar By HALL CAINE CHAPTER III Continued He was crushed but he was strong of heart and would not despair So he pushed on over this green plain through a hundred thousand mossy mounds that looked like the graves of a world of dead men But when he came out of it his case seemed yet more forlorn for leaving thosoft valley behind he had come upon a lava stream a sea of stones -not dust or cinders but a bleached cake of lava rock with never a soft place for the foot and never a green spot for the eye Not a leaf to rustle 1n the breeze not a blade of grass to whisper to it not a birds sweet voice or the song of running water Noth ing lived there but dead silence on earth and in air Nothing but that or in other hours the roar of wind the rattle of rain and the crash of thunder All this time Jason had walked on under the sweltering sun never rest ing never pausing buoyed up with the hope of water water for the fainting man that he might not die But in the desolation of that moment he dropped Sunlocks from his shoulder and threw himself down beside him And sitting there with the head of his unconscious comrade upon his knees he put it himself to say what had been the eood of all that he had None and if it would not have been letter for them both if he had sub mitted to base tyranny and remained at the Mines Had he not brought this man out to his death What else was before him in this waste wilder ness where was there a drop of water to cool his hot forehead or moisten bis parched tongue And thinking that his yoke fellow might die and die at his hands and that he would then be alone and the only mans face gone from him that had ever brightened life for him his heart be gan to waver and to say Rise up Jason rise up and go back But just then he was conscious of the click clack of horses hoofs on the echoing face of the stony sea about lim and he shaded his eyes and look ed around and saw in the distance a line of men on ponies coming on in his direction And though he thought of the guards that had been signalled to pursue him he made no effort to escape He did not stir or try to hide himself but sat as before with tne liead of his comrade on his knees The men on the ponies came up and passed him closely by without seeing Tiim But he saw them clearly and heard their talk They were not the guardis ffrom the settlement but Thing men bound for Thingvellir and the meeting of Althing there And while they were going on before him in their laughter and high spirits Ja son could scarce resist the impulse to cry out to them to stop and take him along with them as their prisoner for that he was an outlaw who had broken his outlawry and carried away this fainting man at his knees But before the words would form themselves and while his blistering lips were shaping to speak them a great thought came to him and struck him back to silence Why had he torn away from the Sulphur Mines Only from a gloomy love of life life for his comrade and life for himself And what life was there in this trackless waste this mouldering dumb wilderness None none Nothing but death lay here death in these gaunt solitudes death in these dry deserts death amid these ghastly haggard wrecks of human things What chance could there be of escape from Iceland None none none But there was one hope yet Who were these men that had passed him They were Thing men they were the lawmakers WTherewere they going They were going to the Mount of Laws Why were they going there To hold their meeting of Althing What was Althing The highest pow er of the State the Supreme Court of legislature and law What did all this mean It meant that Jason as an Icelander knew the laws of his country and that one great law above all other laws he remem bered at that instant It concerned outlaws And what were they but outlaws both of them It ordered that the condemned could appeal at Althing against the injustice of his sentence If the ranks of the judges opened for his escape then he was saved Jason leaped to his feet at the thoueht of it That was what he would do for his comrade and him self He would push on to Thingvellir It was five and thirty heavy miles away but no matter for that The angel of hope would walk with him He would reach the Mount of Laws - carrying his comrade all the way And when he got there he would plead the cause of both of them Then the judges would rise and part and make way for them and they would be free men thereafter Life life life There was left for both of them and very sweet it seem ed after the shadow of death that had bo nearly encompassed them Only to lire Only to live They were young yet and loved one another as brothers And while thinking so in the whirl of his senses as he strode to and fro over the lava blocks Jason heard what his ear had hitherto been too beavy to catch the thin music of falling water near at hand And look ing up he saw a tiny rivulet like a lock of silken hair dropping over a round face of rock and thanking God for it he ran to it and filled both hands with it and brought it to Sun locks and bathed his forehead with it and his poor blinded eyes and moist ened his withered lips whispering meantime words of hope and simple nothings such as any woman might croon over her sick boy Come boy come then come boy come he whispered and clapped his moist hands together over the placid face to call it back to itself A i V Centime Story f And while he did so sure enough Sunlocks moved his lips parted his cheeks quivered and he sighed And seeing these signs of consciousness Jason began to cry for the great rude fellow who had not flinched before death was touched at the sight of life in that deep place where the strongest man is as a child But just then he heard once more the sound of horses hoofs on the lava ground and looking up he saw that there was no error this time and that the guards were surely coming Ten or twelve of them there seemed to be mounted on as many ponies and they were driving on at a furious gallop over the stones There was a dog racing in front of them another dog was running at their heels and with the barking of the dogs the loud whoops of the men to urge the ponies along and to the clatter of the ponies hoofs the plain rang and echoed Jason saw that the guards were coming on in their direction In three minutes more they would be upon them They were taking the line fol lowed by the Thing men Would they pass them by unseen as the Thing men had passed them That was not to be expected for they were there to look for them What was to be done Jason looked behind him Nothing was there but an implacable wall of stone rising sheer up into the sky with never a bough or tussock of grass to cling to that a man might climb He looked around The ground was covered with cracked domes like the arches of buried cities but the caverns that lay beneath them were guarded by spiked jaws which only a mans foot could slip through Not a gap not a hole to creep into not a stone to crouch under not a bush to hide behind nothing in sight on any side but the bare hard face of the wide sea of stone There was not a moment to lose Jason lifted Sunlocks to his shoulder and crept along bent nearly double as silently and swiftly as he could go And still behind him was the whoop of the men the barking of the dogs and the clatter of hoofs On and on he went minute after precious minute The ground became heavier at every stride with huge stones that tore his stockinged legs and mangled his feet in his thin skin shoes But he recked nothing of this or rejoiced in it for the way was as rought for the guards behind him and he could hear that the horses had been drawn up from their gallop to a slow paced walk At each step he scoured the bleak plain for shelter and at length he saw among piles of vitreous snags a hummock of great slabs clashed together with one side rent open It was like nothing else on earth but a tomb in an old burial ground where the vaults have fallen in and wrecked the monuments aboVe them Through the cankered lips of this hummock into its gaping throat Jason pushed the unconscious body of Sunlocks and crept in after it And lying there in the gloom he waited for the guards to come on and as they came he strained his ears to catch the sound of the words that passed between them No no were on the right course said one voice How hollow and far away it sounded You saw his foot marks on the moss that wes just crossed over and youll seem them again on the clay were coming to Youre wrong said another voice we saw one mans footsteps only and we are following two Dont I tell you the red man is carrying the other All these miles Impossible Any how thats their course not this Why so Because theyre bound for Hafna fiord Why Hafnafiord To take ship and clear away Tut man theyve got bigger game than that Theyre going to Reykja vik What To run into the lions mouth Yes and to draw his teeth too What has the Captain always said Why that the red man has all along been spy for the fair one and we know who he is Let him once set foot in Reykjavik and hell do over again what he did before Crouching over Sunlocks in the darkness of that grim vault Jason heard these words as the guards rode past him in the glare of the hot sun and not until they were gone did he draw his breath But just as he lay back with a sigh of relief thinking all danger over suddenly he heard a sound that startled him It was the sniffling of a dog outside his hiding place and at the next moment two glittering eyes looked in upon him from the gap whereby he had entered The dog growled and Jason tried to pacify it It barked and then Jason laid hold of it and gripped it about the throat to silence it It fumed and fought but Jason held it like a vice until there came a whistle and a call and then it struggled afresh Erik shouted a voice without Erik Erik and then whistle fol lowed whistle Thinking the creature would now follow its master Jason was for re leasing it but before he had yet fully done so the dog growled and barked again Erik Erik shouted the voice outside and from the click clack of hoofs Jason judged that one of the men was returning Then Jason saw that there was nothing left to him but to quiet the dog or it would betray them to their death so while the brute writhed in his great hands struggling to tear the flesh from them he laid hold of its jaws and rived them apart and broke them In a moment more the dog was dead In the silence that followed a faint voice came from the distance crying Sigurd Siguard why are you wait ing And then another voice shouted j back from near at hand very near so near as to seem to be on top 01 -hummock Ive lost my dog and i could swear I heard him growling somewhere hereabouts not a minute sines Jason was holding his breath again when suddenly a deep sigh came from Sunlocks then another and another and then some rambling words that had no meaning but made a dull hum in that hollow place The man out side must have heard something for he called his dog again At that Jasons heart fell low and all he could do he did he reached over the stretched form of his com rade and put his lips to the lips of Sunlocks just that he might smother their deadly babble with noiseless kisses This must have served for when the voice that was far away shouted again Sigurd Sigurd the voice that was near at hand answered Coming And a moment later Jason heard the sounds of hoofs going off from him as before Then Michael Sunlocks awoke to full consciousness and realized his state and what had befallen him and where he was and who was with him At first he was overwhelmed by a tempest of agony at feeling that he was a lost and forlorn man blind and maimerd at it seemed at that time for all the rest of his life to come After that he cried for water saying that his throat was baked and his tongue cracked and Jason replied that all the water they had found that day they had been forced to leave be hind them where they could never re turn to it Then he poured out a tor rent of hot reproaches calling on Jason to say why he had been brought out there to go mad of thirst and Jason listened to all and made no answer but stood with bent head and quivering lips and great tear drops on his rugged cheeks The spasm of agony and anger soon passed as Jason knew it must and then full of remorse Sunlocks saw everything in a new light What time of day is it he asked Evening said Jason How many hours since we left Kri suvik Ten How many miles from there Twenty Have you carried me all the way Yes There was a moments pause then an audible sob and then Sunlocks felt for Jasons hand and drew it down to his lips That kiss was more than Jason could bear though he bore the hot words well enough so he made a brave show of unconcern and rattled on with hopeful talk saying where they were to go and what he was to do for both of them and how they would be free men to morrow And as he talked of the great task that was before them his heart grew strong again and Sunlocks caught the contagion of his spfrit and cried Yes yes let us set off I can walk alone now Come let us go At that Jason drew Sunlocks out of the hummock and helped him to his feet You are weak still he said Let me carry you again No no I am strong Give me your hand Thats enough said Sunlocks To be continued Economical Royal Gifts Queen Vic favorite form of gift was an Indian shawl Thousands of these articles of attire were present j ed by her in the course of her Ion reign King Edward is exhibiting partiality for distributing etchings an engravings among his friends Hi majesty who while Prince of Walesj was an Industrious collector of black and white drawings found himself the possessor of thousands of duplicate copies of published works of art upon succeeding to his mothers unique collection He has therefori set apart a big store of drawings t6 be turned to whenever he desires to make a personal gift When one con siders that apart from frequent lib eral purchases of works of art both Queen Victoria and King Edward ac cepted copies of the majority of no table etchings and engravings pub lished in the last quarter of a century and more the magnitude of his maj estys present collection can be imag ined His friends are naturally grati fied that he has decided to weed it out for their benefit Leeds Mercury Violets on Italian Rlverla The crop of violets on the Italian Riviera has been ruined owing to the bad season The growers have all suf fered heavy losses and the Russian General Gorloff has sent 150000 francs to the Russian consul at San Remo to be distributed among the poorest of the peasant growers in order that they may not be discouraged by this sea sons failure and to help them toward a better crop next year Kinship Among Plants A cross between a headless cabbage and the turnip produced the rape plant Cabbages and turnips them selves are relatives the lettuce plant also claims near kin to them and far back in plant life grew a parent plant with some of the characteristics that each now claims as its own from which all three and many another plant also descended Never Rode on a Railway Mrs S P Mitchell the oldest resi dent of Fayette Mo now in her 100th year has never ridden on a railway When the first train passed through Fayette she went down to look at it She vowed that she would never ride in one of them wagons for anything in the world and she has kept her word Elements In Star Perseus The observations concerning the new star in Perseus show that the star con tains such substances as hydrogen so dium helium calcium magnesium and coronium The shifting of the spectral lines shows that the new star is mov ing away from the earth at a low ve locity J DAMAGES SERMON THE SEEN AND THE UNSEEN THE SUBJECT to These Are Farts of the Ways Bat How Little a Portion Is Heard of Him Job xxvi 14 Workings of Divine Power Copyright 1901 by Louis Klopsch N T Washington June 16 In this dis course Dr Talmage raises high expec tations of the day when that which is now only dimly seen will be fully re vealed text Job xxvi 14 Lo these are parts of his ways But how little a portion is heard of him But the thunder of his power who can under stand The least understood biing in the iniverse is God Blasphemous would be any attempt by painting or sculpture to represent him Egyptian hiero glyphs tried to suggest him by putting the figure of an eye upon a sword im plying that God sees and rules but how imperfect the suggestion When we speak of him it is almost always in language figurative He is Light or Dayspring From on High or he is a High Tower or the Fountain of Living Waters His splendor is so great that no man can see him and live When the group of great theo logians assembled in Westminster ab bey for the purpose of making a sys tem of religious belief they first of all wanted an answer to the question Kho is God No one desired to un dertake the answering of that over mastering question They finally con cluded to give the task to the youngest man in the assembly who happened to be Rev George Gillespie He con sented to undertake it on the condi tion that they would first unite with him in prayer for divine direction He began his prayer by saying O God thou art a spirit infinite infinite eter nal and unchangeable in thy being wisdom power holiness justice good ness and truth That first sentence qf Gillespies prayer was unanimously adopted by the assembly as the best definition of God But after all it vas only a partial success and after everything that language can do when put to the utmost strain and all we can see of God in the natural world and realize of God in the providential world we are forced to cry out with Jobin my text Lo these are parts of tie ways But how little a portion is hoard of him But the thunder of his power who can understand Gods Way of Doing Wej try to satisfy ourselves with say ing rlt is natural law that controls things gravitation is at work centri petal and centrifugal forces respond to each other But what is natural law It is only Gods way of doing things At every point in the universe it is Gods jdirect and continuous power that contrqls and harmonizes and sustains Thatpower withdrawn one instant would make the planetary system and ail the worlds which astronomy re veals one universal wreck bereft hem ispheres dismantled sunsets dead con stellations debris of worlds What power it must be that keeps the in ternal fires of our world imprisoned only here and there spurting from a Cotopaxi or a Stromboli or from a Vesuvius putting Pompeii and Hercu laneum into sepulcher but for the most part the internal fires chained in their cages of rock and century after century unable to break the chain or burst open the door What power to keep the component parts of the air in right proportion so that all around the world the nations may breathe in health the frosts and the heats hin dered from working universal demoli tion Power as Isaiah says to take up the isles as a very little thing Ceylon and Borneo and Hawaii as though they were pebbles power to weigh the mountains in scales and the -hills in balances Tenerife and the Cordilleras To move a rock we must have lever and screw and great1 machinery but God moves the world with nothing but a word power to create worlds and power to destroy them as from observation again and again they have been seen red with flame then pale villi ashes and then scattered Workings the Divine Power We get some little idea of the divine power when we see how it buries the proudest cities and nations Ancient Memphis it has ground up tntil many of its ruins are no larger than your thumb nail and you can hardly find a souvenir large enough to remind you of your visit The city of Tyre is under the sea which washes the shore on which are only a few crumbling miliars left Sodom and Gormorrah are covered by waters so deathful that not a fish can live in them Babylon and Ninevah are so blotted out of exist ence that not one uninjured shaft of their ancient splendor remains Noth ing but omnipotence could have put them down and put them under The antediluvian world was able to send to the postdiluvian world only one ship with a very small passenger list Om nipotence first rolled the seas over the land and then told them to go back to their usual channels as rivers and lakes and oceans At omnipotent command the waters pouncing upon their prey and at omnipotent com mand slinking back into their appro priate places By such rehearsal we try to arouse our appreciation of what om nipotence is and our reverence is ex cited and our adoration is intensified but after all we find ourselves at the foot of a mountain we cannot climb hovering over a depth we cannot fa thom at the rim of a circumference we cannot compass and we feel like first going down on our knees and then like falling flat upon our faces as we exclaim Lo these are parts of his ways But how little a portion is heard of him But the thunder of his power who can understand V The God of Abraham A tradition says that Abraham of the Old Testament was when an Infant hidden in a cave because of the perse cutions of Nimrod The first time the child came out of the cavern it was night and he looked up at the star and cried This is my God but the star disappeared and Abraham said No that cannot be my God After awhile the moon rose and Abraham said That is my God but it set and Abraham was again disappointed Af ter awhile the sun rose and he said Why truly here is my God but the sun went down and Abraham was sad dened Not until the God of the Bible appeared to Abraham was he satisfied and his faith was so great that he was called the Father of the Faithful All that the theologians know of Gods wisdom is insignificant compared with the wisdom beyond human comprehen sion The human race never has had and never will have enough brain or heart to measure the wisdom of God I can think of only two authors who have expressed the exact facts The one was Paul who says Oh the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God how unsearchable are his judgments and his ways past finding out The other author was the scientist who composed my text I think he wrote it during a thunder storm for the chapter says much about the clouds and describes the tremor of the earth under the reverberations Witty writers sometimes depreciate the thunder and say it i3 the lightning that strikes but I am sure God thinks well of the thunder or he would not make so much of it and all up and down the Bible he uses the thunder to give emphasis It was the thunder that shook Sinai when the law was given It was Ith thunder that the Lord discomfited the Philistines at Eben ezer Job pictures the warhorse as having a neck clothed with thunder St John in an apocalyptic vision again and again heard the thunder The thjunder which is now quite well explained by the electricians was the overpowering mystery of the ancients and standing among those mysteries Job exclaimed Lo these are parts of his ways But how little a portion is heard of him But the thunder of his power who can understand The Omnlpresonce of God We have all been painfully reminded in our own experiences that we can not be in two places at the same time Madler the astronomer went on with his explorations until he concluded that the star Alcyone one of the Pleiades was the center of the uni verse and it was a fixed world and all the other worlds revolved around that world and some think that that world is heaven and Gods throne is there and there reside the nations of the blest But he is no more there than he is here Indeed Alcyone has been found to be in motion and it also is revolving around some great center But no place has yet been found where God is not present by sustaining power Omnipresence Who fully appreciates it Not I Not you Sometimes we hear him in a whisper Sometimes we hear him in the voice of the storm that jars the Adriondacks But we cannot swim across this ocean The finite cannot measure the infinite We feel as Job did after finding God in the gold mines and the silver mines of Asia saying There is a vein for the silver and a place for the gold where they fine it And after ex ploring the heavens as an astromoner and finding God in distant worlds and becoming acquainted with Orion and Mazzaroth and Arcturus and noticing the tides of the sea the inspired poet expresses his incapacity to understand such evidences of wisdom and power and says Lo these are parts of his ways But how little a portion is heard of him But the thunder of his power who can understand So every system of theology has at tempted to describe and define the di vine attribute of love Easy enough is it to define fatherly love motherly love conjugal love fraternal love sis terly love and love of country but the love of God defies all vocabulary For many hundreds of years poets have tried to sing it and painters have tried to sketch it and ministers of the gospel to preach it and martyrs in the fire and Christians on their deathbeds have ex tolled it and we can tell what it is like but no one has yet fully told what it is Men speak of the love of God as though it were first felt between the pointing of Bethlehem star and the pounding of the crucifixion hammer But no Long before that existed the love of God Seeing God Face to Pace Only glimpses of God have we in this world but what an hour it will be when we first see him and we will have no more fright than I feel when I now see you It will not be with mortal eye that we will behold him but with the vision of a cleansed for given and perfected spirit Of all the quintillion ages of eternity to us the most thrilling hour will be the first hour when we meet him as he is This may account for something you have all seen and may not have under stood Have you not noticed how that after death of the old Christian looks young again or the features resume the look of 20 or 30 years before The weariness is gone out of the face there is something strikingly restful and placid there is a pleased look where before there was a disturbed look What has wrought the change I think the dying Christian saw God At the moment the soul left the body what the soul saw left its impression on the countenance I think that is What gave that old Christian face after death the radiant and triumphant look The bestormed spirit has reached the harbor the hard battle of life is ended in victory The body took that look the moment heaven began and the curtain was completely lifted and the glories of Jehovahs presence rushed upon the soul The departing spirit left on the old mans face a glad good- ISse by and that first look gave the pleased curve to the dying Up and smootned out the wrinkles and touched all the lineaments with an indescribable radi ance As no one else explains that im proved and gladdened post mortem look I try to explain it saying Ho saw God She saw God Keeping Plowers Fresh Cut flowers though universally em ployed are seldom treated a3 they ought to be so here are a few hints for those who like to keep their blos soms fresh as long as possible First of all they should be put into some large receptacle and sprinkled freely with water all over Only after thi3 preliminary operation it Is wise to transfer them to the several pots they are to occupy They ought to be taken out every morning sprinkled as on the first day the tip of the stem then f being cut off and fresh water flow ing from a tap should be allowed to run over the stalk3 holding the flow ers head downward says the Philadel phia Press Finally and herein lies the principal secret of success the water in the vases may be doctored in this man ner Mix thoroughly together a table spoonful of finely shredded yellow soap enough chloride of sodium to cover a florin and half a pint of water Put in a portion of this mixture into every receptacle and fill in the usual way A pinch of borax in each one will preserve all the coloring of the most brilliant flowers and by renewing the supply of the above solution every two or three days the flowers will last for a couple of weeks or more Palms and all foliage plants must be carefully but moderately watered washed put outside daily for a bath of air and sun shine and must not be stood in draughty places Electricity at ions Range The street cars in Oakland Cal are now operated with electricity from the Yuba river 140 miles distant The wa ter power having been converted into electricity is carried on wires six tenths of an inch in diameter made of an alloy of copper and aluminum The electrical pressure is 40000 volts and the loss in transmission is said to 5 per cent This Is by far the long est electrical transmission system for power purposes in existence and if the loss is as small as it is stated to be it is the most promising indication of the possibilities of long distance trans mission yet furnished Something like six years ago says the Railway Engineering Review a test of elec tric transmission over a line between Frankfort and Lauffen in Germany a distance of 110 miles was made for experimental purposes but not until the test of the plant above referred to has transmission for commercial pur poses over a line of such great length been a fact Catting Down the Army The initial step has been taken by the War department toward the reduc tion of the force of regulars in the Philippines to 40000 Orders were ca bled General MacArthur to send to the United States the Fourteenth Eigh teenth and Twenty third regiments of infantry Fourth cavalry Twenty ninth Thirtieth Thirty second and Thirty third companies of coa3t artil lery and the First Eighth Tenth Twelfth and Thirteenth batteries of field artillery The homeward move ment of these troops can not be begun until after the volunteers have been re turned At present it is believed that 40000 men will be enough for the Phil ippines The manner in which the troops shall be distributed among the different arms of the service is as fol lows Cavalry 15840 men artillery coast and field 18802 and 38529 in fantrymen The total enlisted strength will be 74504 men The army includ ing officers will aggregate about 80000 FIto Talents The last man to go for a helping hand for any new undertaking is the man who has plenty of time on his hands It is the man and woman who are doing most who are always willing to do a little more The people who are tired of life are not those who work but those who are too proud or too lazy to do so Many of the rich are morbidly rest less while those who have to earn their daily bread are comparatively contented and happy The Bible says that the sleep of a laboring man is sweet whether he eat little or much Eccl v 12 and the busy worker ha3 health and blessing which the listless idler never knows Selected Topers Children Are Weak Not infrequently the children of topers die of hereditary weakness not only showing a pronounced tendency toward diseases of the brain epilepsy and idiocy but they are also frequent ly subject to vicious inclinations and criminal tendencies They lack per ception for that which is moral and which contributes to a steady well ordered career Weighted with the burden of hereditary mental weakness they not unfrequently take to tramp ing fall into crime or become the vic tims of drunkenness or Insanity The tendency to drink degenerates not only the existing race but also the coming generation Individual Responsibility Francis E Clark says Many re vivals can be traced so far as human agency goes directly to the prayer of some individual Christian sometimes to the prayer of a helpless invalid who could never attend a prayer meeting What God has done God will do if we are ready for Him to work through us The first American theater was op ened in 1750 in the city of New York re 1