A Daughter of Delilah — page 20: what you’re looking at

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

A FALSE TELEGRAM. 11 In answer to the man’s last cry of caution, Edgar Alston waved the lantern. He quite understood the danger, and not one man in a hundred would have faced a black tunnel at any time, much less at night. ‘Tf this is taking a flight toward heaven,’’ he thought, grimly, ‘‘the way is much darker than we are taught to believe! I have followed the track out West for a hundred miles at a stretch, but I never remember facing a tunnel more than a hundred yards through.”’’ He burst into song again, and his rapid movements sent a warm glow through every vein. He felt the wine in his blood, in his heart, in his head. His perceptions were blurred, but he was utterly insensible to fear. He looked behind, and the station lights glimmered like elow-worms. Before him was a mountain of rocks, above which a young moon was just rising, and at the same mo- ment he plunged into a cutting whose iron-clamped walls were as black as ebony. “We'll take a flight toward heaven to night, And leave dull earth behind us!” Alston murmured. ‘““By Jove! This looks more like taking a trip to in- ferno!’’ he added, with a laugh that was thrown back from the black walls, and the blacker gulf beyond, in many solemn echoes. He set down the lantern to button his coat tightly about him, for the mouth of the tunnel seemed to vomit forth a blast as cold as ice. ‘One more look at that idiotic telegram,’’ he muttered, drawing from his pocket a piece of crumpled paper, and spreading it out on his knee. ‘Surely, I made no mistake! What on earth will my sister Minnie think? And as for Gomicboo gs) (E(0) anles