The Argosy, Vol. XXV, No. 3 — page 79: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

THE PHANTOM ARMY. 463 me. . From that I passed to a memory of pretty Giralda, and of the night when I had kissed her at the cathedral gate of Zaragoza. Where was my little guide now? I pictured her riding through the hills on her famous pony ; and from that—suddenly, with a chill at my heart—I went on to my meeting-with the master of the camp, and to the words which the guide had spoken. There are a few occasions in all our lives when we realize, as in some dreadful vision, the whole meaning of death ; moments when the terror of eternity and of its mysteries is the master of our minds—when we say to our- selves all men must die, and the day will come when we as individuals shall think no more, speak no more, look no more upon the things we have loved |! One such occasion in my own life was the moment of my awaking in the mountain cave above Torla. ‘That which had been a jest to me in the morning presented itself now asa reality. How, I asked, if the man meant the words? I had come to his camp uninvited ; possibly had learned some of hissecrets. He knew, I argued, of my meeting with Isabella de Gavarnie. Would such a man, he who had burned the castle of La Santa Cruz, stand at my death? Would the Spanish authorities be a whip for him, for one whose agents, as I had seen, were the friends of the police in every town? ‘The more I thought of it, the clearer the thing became. Here, sheltered in the nest of the Pyrenées, was a troop of men planning I knew not what deviltry, what conspiracy against the Spanish government. Chance had directed me to the lair of these conspirators. If they had sent me about my business, I could tell a tale in all Spain. But if I were dead? ; They had left a wine bottle and a loaf of bread by my side when they locked me dn the cave. I drank a deep draft of the coarse liquor and then began to examine my prison. From the first moment of waking, I had been conscious of a curious moaning noise in my ears; and now, when I began to look about me, the secret of the sounds was disclosed. ‘The cave had but three walls to it. The fourth wall was a fierce cascade, roaring down through a vast tunnel to join some. river of the valley below. No. stranger prison ever was built. The companionship of that black river fall- ing from the breast of the mountain above, and showing to the prisoner a face of glittering waters, was worthy of the Spanish race. I could well imagine the victim of captivity tempted by the weird voice of the torrent, until he cast himself headlong into its waters, and found a tomb beneath the mountains. Elsewhere the cave was large and lofty, one of the limestone caves com- mon to the district of Torla. At any other time I should have found many beauties in the depending stalactites, which were nature’s ornaments of its roof. And it was lighted, too, by some other window than that of the gate of bars through which I had passed. A glow of the sinking sun shone warm upon its splendid pinnacles and showed a thousand lights playing over the wall of waters. I could well have imagined myself in some cathedral forgotten by man, but existing still to the glory of nature’s God. ‘The view through the bars of the gate helped me to the thought. I could look thence upon the silent forest ; could see the izard leaping from crag to crag; could hear the tinkle of distant bells. But no human thing was there. ‘The sink- Eomilcbooks (S@)