Historical Newspapers of South Carolina

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THCDT > i 0, umntaa Bf nmwuoi 'Vengeance upon traitors 1* We swore ft solemnly one to the other—‘Ven geance upon traitors 1* ” “Ah! if I had lived in those days I would have worn your flower at the court of the king/* she cried, with glowing cheeks. He pressed her hand in silence, and continued. “As time went on, and things grew still more unsettled in the country^ a species of inouisition was established. The eyes of the law were everywhere. They fell upon us. One night ten of us were arrested as we left our meet ing place. We were all noble, and the families of my companions were powerful. I was looked upon as the fair?” “Fair! It was generous! Go on! Go on!” *•' t “The word had been given; our swords were crossed. And at that moment, rite, Adrienne, the woman whom I loved, stood before us. With hare were Italian police come to arrest me! There was one letter alone of mine, written in a hasty moment, which could have been used in evi dence against me at my former trial, and which would have secured for me a harsher sentence. That letter had fallen into her hands; and she had given it over to my bitter enemy, the chief of the Italian police. I was betrayed, betrayed by the woman Count Leonardo di Marioni Telling Hit Story to Hit Niece Seventh Installment WHAT HAPPENED BEFORE Palermo is the scene. There an exile, Leonardo di Marioni. has come for lore of Adrienne Cartuccio, who spurns hid*. He meets an Englishman, Lord St Mau rice, who falls in love with Adrienne on sight Leonardo sees his sister Margharita, who tells him hi* love for Adrienne is hope less. But he pleads with her to arrange an accidental meeting, to say farewell, be tween Adrienne and him. She consents. That night the Englishman is informed of an attempt being ^nade to carry off Signorina Cartuccio, and Mar gharita, who are walking by brigands employed by a rejected suitor on a lonely road. He rushes to the scene, and proves able to rescue the ladies. Inflamed by the failure of his scheme, Leonardo sees Margharita who shows him she knows that he was instigator of the attempted attack. The Englishman now sees Adrienne often. The Englishman, sit ting in the hotel, finds a dagger at his feet. Looking up, he sees the Sicilian, and scents trouble. “We sat here a week ago,” re calls Leonardo. Lord Sf. Maurice nods. Leonardo and the Englishman quarrel. * The Englishman at first refused to accept a challenge to duel, then when the Italian slaps him consents. The two men face each other ready to fight to the- death. Margharita stops the duel by coming just in the nick of time to save the Englishman from his fate, with two officers who arrest the exile Leonardo. Leonardo vows ven geance. After 25 years in jail he is again at his hotel, an old, broken man with only memories left to him. At/his hotel the proprietor, worried about him, advertises for his friends and Leonardo is first visited by the woman he had loved, whom he shoos out of his sight. Then there comes to him the daughter of his sister, whom he greets in great sur prise. He learns that his sister is dead. NOW GO ON WITH THE STORY He sighed, and his tearless eyes looked thoughtfully into the fire. Memories of other days were rising up and passing before him in swift procession. He saw himself and her, orphan brother and sister, wanderinj (hand in hand over their beautiful island home, with the sea wind blowing in their faces, and the spirit of the mountains which towered around them entering into their hearts. Dear to them had been that home, dear that close and precious companionship. They had talked of the lite *rhich lay before them—rose-colored and joyous, preg nant with glorious opportunities and E issibilities. For their island and the rger continent close at hand were convulsed at that time in certain patri otic efforts, the history of which has been written into the history of Eu rope, and no one desired more ardently to bear a hand in the struggle than young Leonardo di Marioni. Large hearted, romantic, and with an imagi nation easily bred, he was from the first a dreamer, and Margharita had ever been ready to share his dreams. The blood of kings was in their veins, to lead him on to great things; and she, Margharita, his sister, his be loved sister, should be the mistress of his destinies. Thus they had talked, thus they had dreamed, and now from the other side of the gulf he looked backward, and saw in his own life, in the place of those great deeds which he had hoped to accomplish, one black miserable chasm, and m hers, forget fulness of her high descent—for she had married this English merchant’s son—and the grave. Ah! it was sad, very sad! “Child!” he cried, “have you ever heard the story of my seizure and imprisonment? No, you have not. You shall hear it. You shall judge between me and them. Listen 1 When I was a young man, Italy seemed trembling on the verge of a revolu tion. The history of it all you know. You know that the country was honey combed with secret societies, more or less dangerous. To one of these I belonged. We called our Order the 'Order of the White Hyacinth.’ We were all young, ardent and impetuous, and we imagined ourselves the apostles | of the coming liberation. Yet we never advocated bloodshed; we never really transgressed the law. We gave lectures, we published pamphlets. We were a set of boy dreamers with wild theories—communists, most of us. But there was not one who would not have died to save our country the misery of civil war—not one, not one! Even women wore our flower, and were admitted associates of our Order. We ledged ourselves that our aims, were loodless. No society that ever ex isted was more harmless than ours. I say itf I swear ft! Bear me wit ness, oh, my God, if^what I say be not true 1” . He was a strong man again. The apathy was gone; his reason was saved. He stood before this dark, tal girl, who, with clasped hands, was drinking in every word, and he spoke with all the swelling dignity of one who has suffered unjustly. “By some means or other our society fell under the suspicion of the government. The edict went forth that we should be broken up. We heard the mandate with indignation. We were young and hot-blooded, anc we were conscious that we had done no harm—that we were innocent of the things ascribed to us. We swore that we would carry on our society, but in secret. Before then, everything hac . ( been open; we had had a recognizee meeting place, the public ha4 attendee our lectures, ladies had worn the white hyacinth openly at receptions and balls. Now, all was changed. We met in secret and under a ban. Still our aim was harmless. One clause alone was added to our rules of a different char acter, and we all subscribed to ri ngleader ; and upon me fell the most severe sentence. I was banished from Italian soil for ten years, with the solemn warning that death would be my lot if I ventured to return.” “It was atrocious!’* He held up hi# hand. “Margharita,- in those days I loved. Her name was Adrienne. She, too, was an orphan, and although she was of noble fcsrth, she was poor, as we Marionis were poor also. She had a great gift; she was a singer; and, sooner than be dependent upon her relatives, she had sung at concerts and operas, until all Europe knew of her :ame. When I was exiled I was given seven days in which to make my adieux. I went to her, and de clared my love. She did not abso- utely reject me, nor did she accept me. She asked for time for con sideration. I could give her none 1 I begged her to leave die country with me. Alas! she would not! Perhaps I was too passionate, too precipitate! It may have been so; I cannot say. I went away alone and left her. I plunged into gay life at Paris; I dwelt among the loneliest mountains of Switzerland; I endured the dullness of this cold gray London, and the dissi pation of Vienna. It was all in vain! One by one they palled upon me. No manner of life, no change of scene, could cure me of my love. I fell ill, and I knew that my heart was break ing. You and I, Margharita, come of a race ‘ whose love and hatred are eternal!” She crept into his arms; and he went on, holding her there. “Back I came at the peril of my life; content to die, if it were only at her feet. I found her cold and changed; blaming me even for my rashness, desiring even my absence. Not a word of pity to sweeten those weary days of exile; not a word of hope to repay me for all that I had risked to see her again. Soon I knew the reason—another love had stolen away her heart. There was an Eng lishman visiting her daily at Palermo; and she told me calmly one day that she loved* him, and intended to be come his wife. She, forgot my long years of devoted service; she forgot her own unspoken, yet understood, promise; she forgot all that I hac suffered for her; she forgot that her words must sound to me as the death warrant of all joy and happiness in this world. And she forgot, too, that I was a Marioni! Was I wrong, I wonder, Margharita, that I quarrelec with him! You are a child, and yet my instinct tells me that you have a' woman’s judgment! Tell me, should I have stepped aside, and let him win her, without a blow ?*’ “You would have been a coward if you had!” she cried. “You fought him! Tell me that you fought him?” “Margharita, you are a true daugh ter of your country!” the old man cried. “You are a Marioni! Listen! I insulted him! He declined to fight! I struck him across the face in a pub lic restaurant, and forced him to ac cept my challenge. The thing was arranged. We stood face to face on the sand, sword in hand. The word had been given! His life was at my mercy; but mind, Margharita, I had no thought of taking it without giving him a fair chance. I intended to wait until my sword was at his throat, and then I would have said to him, 'Give up the woman whonv I have loved all my life, and go unhurt!’ He himself should have chosen. Was not that / whom I had braved all dangers to see! It was she who had brought them; she who—without remorse or hesita tion—calmly handed me over to twen ty-five years’ captivity in a prison cell!” Margharita freed herself from his arms. She was very pale, and her limbs were shaking. But what a fire in those dark, cruel eyes. “Go on! Go on!” she cried. "Let me hear the rest” • “Then, as I stood there, Margharita, love shriveled up, and hate reigned in its place. The memory of the oath of our Order Bashed into my mind. A curtain seemed raised before my eyes. saw the long narrow room of our meeting place. I saw the dark, faith- ul faces of my comradet. #1 heard their firm voices—'Vengeance upon traitors, vengeance upon traitors T She, too, this woman who had be trayed me, had worn our flower upon ler bosom and in her hair! She had come under the ban of that oath. Margharita, 1 threw my sword into the sea, and I raised my clasped hands to the sky, and I swore that, were it the last day of my life, the day of my release should see me avenged. Let them hide in the uttermost corners of the earth, I' cried, that false woman and her English lover, still I would find them out, and they should taste of my vengeance! To my trial I went, with that oath written in my heart. I carried it with me into my prison cell, and day by day and year by year I repeated it to mvself. It kept me alive; the desire of it grew into my being. Even now it burns in my heart! “During my captivity I was allowed to see ray lawyer, and I made over by deed so much, to be paid every year to the funds of our Order at the Lon don Branch, for our headquarters had been moved there after my first ar rest. Day by day I dreamed of the time when I should stand, a martyr in their cause, before my old comrades, and demand of them the vengeance which was my due. I imagined them, one by one, grasping my hand, full of deep, silent sympathy with my long sufferings. I heard again the oath which we had sworn—‘Vengeance upon traitors, vengeance upon traitors!’ It . was the music which kept me alive, the hope which nourished my life 1” The dark eyes glowed upon him like stars, and her voice, trembled with eagerness. “You have been to them? You will be avenged! Tril me that it is so?” A little choking sob escaped from him. The numbness was passing away from his heart and senses. His sor rows were becoming human,. and de manding human expression. “Ala?, Margharita, alas!” he'eried, with drooping head, “the bitterest dis appointment of my life came upon me all unawares.- While I have lain rot ting in prison history has turned over many pages. The age for secret societies has gone by. The ‘Order of. the White Hyacinth’ is no more— wbrse than that, its very name has been dragged through the dust. One by one the old members fell away; its sacred aims were forgotten.’ The ; story of its downward path wiH never be written. A few coarse, ignorant men meet in a pothouse, night by night, to spend the money I sent in beer and foul tobacco. That is the end of the ‘Order of the White Hya cinth!’ ” Continued Next Week SCRIBE AND MEDICO KNOW HUMAN NATURE Dr. E. W. Ellis, of Dunbarton, who was a visitor feere Monday, remarked to the editor of The People-Sentinel that if this scribe knew human nature as well as the genial medico, he (the editor) would not have published the item last week about the stockingle females invading Barnwell, for the re son that numerous sweet young thin will nbw be displaying their neth extremities a la nude in order to g their names in the paper. To whi the editor replied that he knm human nature well enough to lay light wager that if Dr. EUis’ pred tion should come to pass, the doct will “sit up and take notice,” despite the fact that he is 65 years young. To .Reorganize Schoc4 System. . / ^ A —. .. A bill to reorganize the school sys tem of Barnwell County has been in troduced in. the House of Representa tives by CoL J. E. Harley. C rowded traffic conditions today demand six^cylinder performance—with its greater flexibility, greater reserve power,* higher speed and swifter acceleration. And now—for the first time in commercial car history—. this desirable six-cylinder performance has been jnade available with the economy of the four. For the new six- cylinder Chevrolet trucks are not only offered in the v price range of the four—but they are as economical to operate as their famous four-cylinder predecessors! Both the Light Delivery and the 1% Ton Utility Chassis arc - available with an unusually wide selection of body types —and among them is one exactly suited to your require^ ments. Come in today. We’ll gladly arrange a trial load demonstration—load the truck as you would load it, and drive it over the roads your truck must travel in a regu lar day’s work. V ' - y . * Sedan Delivery, $595; Light Delivery Chassit, $400; Too Chaaak, $545; 1)^ Tea Chassis with Cab, $650. All prices f. o. b. factory, Flint. Mich. Grubbs Chevrolet Company Barnwell, S. C. . - • - • a• , 1 .—- A SIX IN/THE PRICE RANGE OF THE FOUR GOVERONR SIGNS BILL CREATING COMMISSION The South Carolina natural re sources commission came into being Friday when Governor John G. Rich ards affixed his signature to the bill creating such a commission. The act outlines the duties of the commission and its powers. Members are; the governor, ex-officio; Dr. William Weston, Columbia; T. C. Wi liams, Columbia; George D. Sanders, Fairfax; B. H. Peace, Greenville; W. J. Roddy, Sr., Rock Hill; W. A. Cole man,. Hyman; R. A. Easterling, Den mark; Robert Small, Charleston; Holmes B. Springs, Myrtle Beach; T. J. Bennett, Meggetts; A. B. Jordan, Dillon. , Alice White changed from brunette to Monde, bringing about a violation of her contract as a move star. The contract had to be changed to allow Alice to appear as a blonde. Her popularity has increased greatly since FRIGIDAIRE alone offers the new COLD CONTROL FASTER FREEZING . . . MORE DESSERTS 80 recipes for delicious desserts and salads are cancained in • new recipe book we want to give vou,/rv». Scop at our dis play room today. u WILLISTON HDW CO. Williston, S. C. asn i -minutes relief from PILES T HIS is the new way based on scientific study. You apply, and in 7 minutes—fre quently sooner—you experi ence relief. Nothing you ever tried does what this does be cause nothing provides this special medication. The name is Munyon’s Pile Ointment Sufferers by the thousands are idling one another, spreading the secret, to such an extent that the results obtained have given Munyon’s Pile Oint ment one of the largest sales in medical history. ' + :