Page:Tongues of Flame (1924).pdf/305

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stantly—they were taking Adam John away to sentence him to death. Lahleet withdrew her hand from his, stifled a sob with savage stoicism, and turned to follow.

And he was staying behind—to hear his love sentenced to death! So he thought, not perceiving that it might have been hope which died, not his love—that it was because his love lived on that his anguish was so great. However it was, he eased himself down upon that narrow shelf which in a jail is called a bed, and gave way to his emotions. He was so weak that his body did not shake with sobbings; his eyes merely streamed. This was the bitterest of all the bitter hours and it was a long hour—it lasted from five minutes to ten in the morning onward, onward . . . eternitics onward; while he waited for Adam John to come back—and Adam John never came back!

For, while Harrington steeped his soul in the bitterness of black despair, a swirl of mighty events was getting up in Socatullo County—world events, almost—of which he could know nothing, until the sound of them snarled, boomed, roared through the streets and found their excited echo in the jail as elsewhere in the community.