Argosy All-Story Weekly, Vol. 123, No. 3 — page 113: what you’re looking at

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

. ewe PRIDE OF TYSON. “ My word,” said Tyson, “is something which. T can neither give easily nor easily retract. _ There was a silence between them, and the steep shadow lengthened from the moldering wall. “JT am going to tell you a story,” said Padre Miguel. ‘“ It is because she is strange that you hunt her out. She is not beautiful —very. And what could she be in your life? Only an—experience.” Tyson caught the sound of gritted teeth. ‘You are not of her order, senor. What you are I cannot tell. You bear the marks of a laboring man, but your eye is not the eye of one who labors. I had a wolfhound once which was fleeter and fiercer, I think, than any living thing.” Here he turned and looked full into the eyes of Tyson. He continued after that enigmatic glance: ‘‘ But it must be because she is strange to you that you follow her. I will make you know her as I know her. I am sure that is best. ‘Tt was many years ago. El Toro him- self was only a boy at the mission then— and a troublesome boy, I warrant you. It was the spring of the year, and in the spring the Chiluah is a pleasant place, silent and green. Travelers have come up the valley at that season, following the river-road, and in this spring of which I tell you the father and the mother of Rona came up the river-road. They camped among the trees—just over that hill, senor. “ It was plain that they would soon have a child. Indeed, it was for the sake of the . child that they came here. For the wife was not well, and her doctor had sent her away from the city to find quiet. About ‘ her you must understand, seofy that Mr. Carnahan was a violinist famous in three countries, and that while he was touring through Italy he met this girl, and they. were married. ‘‘ And it seemed to me that she was like her husband’s violin. In, tune, she was most pleasant, but out of tune she was very different. And you know, senor, that it needs but little to make a violin out of tune. It was the same with the young wife. _ The promise of the child upset her terribly; -. she could not live in the city; so before the $95 birth the doctor sent her out to find the peace of the desert. “They were strangely close to one an- other, this man and his wife. I would visit them in their cabin and watch them with my heart in my throat. For hours, sefor, he played his violin, and her eyes dwelt on _his face and drank the music, until some- ‘times it-Seemed to me that the music ‘was the food on which the young life within her lived. “So the wife grew stronger and gayer, and the rose came under the olive of her skin, and there was a light in her eyes—a wonderful thing to see.” The padre paused and smiled out to the growing blueness of the hills with the black shadow of the dam between them. He said again: ‘To me, senor, it often seems that the Virgin is incarnate in every wife before her motherhood; the Holy Spirit broods within them. ~ “There was one shadow in the cabin of the Carnahans. He drank much, as some artists will. The burden of his wife’s health and the happiness of both lay on his shoul- ders and bowed him with the weight, and he looked to drink for help. Sefor, I have seen him playing to his wife with the red madness in his eyes, and her the still, white light. Is it any wonder that my heart would come beating in my throat. The Annunciation, with the voice of Satan speaking; the fiend struggling toward a divine work. “But one day he had no more to drink. He came to us for help. Alas! we had nothing to give him. He came again a day Jater and prayed by my side, kneeling near me, for strength. But strength was denied him. Still another day, and he was gone. The violin was silent in the cabin, and the young wife was waiting with blank eyes. I myself went to her and looked into her soul.”’ The padre broke off with a faint moan: and his calloused fingers were interlaced. “She knew as I knew why he had gone. But that did not make the- waiting less terrible for her. He had gone to the nearest town, and that was a sad journey. Seven days, and now he was overdue. And on the eighth night a great storm broke. Never eat fh NOTA DOO <SriG@ im a)