same type of symbolism that can be found repeated on the sculptures of Bali's wonderful old temples.

The male dancers glide across the stage just as perfectly. Or else they appear behind grotesque masks, clowning with humor and agility as dragons, hairy apes and sorcerers. These scenes, too, are ancient heroic legends. Each movement dates back through long centuries.

In fact, the legends usually stem right out of the sacred Hindu thought that first penetrated the Indonesian islands almost two thousand years ago. Such traditional dances are cultural exercises. Once they were only for aristocrats, but now they have become true folk art. In Java and in Bali, where they have been preserved in their purest form, they are performed in even the most isolated villages. And actually, most members of this Balinesian Ballet Company are simple, everyday people from a small village of Bali, a village called Pliatan. They are not pro

fessionals. They are farmers and fishermen and teachers. One is the village mayor. Dancing has always. been part of their life.

As the Company's tour has proceeded, critics have outdone each other in their exuberant praises. A French critic wrote that their music and dancing represented the "true image of beauty-an image of mystery allied to poetry." In the United States, the Company was proclaimed "the year's best artists." In London, the press had just as many superlatives. The tour, in fact, has proved a long series of magnificent successes.

Now it is over. Last month the forty-five members of the Company returned home, back to Indonesia and the island of Bali, back to their native village of Pliatan and their normal everyday work.

And behind them they left enchanted audiences in Europe and the United States who, for one brief moment, were able to get an insight into another culture, another religion, an entirely different way of life.

(Continued from page 61) valley of Siddim, (that is, the salt sea)." And even Siddim is but one Vowel removed from "Sodom."

Do we face at last the truth, lost for ages, that this great battle

is being fought, not in a salt marsh in some indeterminate ancient country, but verily in the human blood?

The human blood is the "salt sea;" your blood is the "Red sea"!

BACK UNDER the eaves there was something small, dark, and square. Harrington remembered the trunk as being much larger, but when he had dragged it into the light of the small peak-window he saw that it was the same.

The straps were stiff and cracked as he undid them. He believed that they had never been touched since the original owner had bent them through the now corroded buckles. The lock was a clumsy, primitive affair, which his strength overcame, though with some difficulty. Harrington had a curious feeling of returned boyhood, and of doing something surreptitious-something he would have done years before had he dared. His pulse quickened as he lifted the lid. He whipped the dust hastily from his hands.

On the top lay garments-curious faded garments. He had known very little of their owner, his father's uncle, no, his grandfather's, an eccentric old bachelor:

Albert B. Paine

Harrington could recall no more than that.

Beneath the clothes were other things-some boots, a pair of leather leggings, a riding-whip with a curious handle. Then there were books-old editions of the poets, for the most part-and a bundle of yellow papers. Harrington was about to examine these when he noticed, down in one corner, a small, square box of some dark, polished wood like mahogany. He lifted the lid, and there came the faint odor of dead tobacco. Within was a small skin pouch, half filled, and a pipe with a cherry stem. Beneath these lay a short, thick volume and the small ivory miniature of a young girl.

As Harrington looked at this picture there came to him a strong sense of unreality in what he was doing. The features before him were familiar-the slender throat, the poise of the head, the halfparted lips about to speak; he had even seen Bess wear her hair the same, with a rose at the back. He

wondered vaguely if this girl, too, had driven men to desperation and gloomy exile in a deserted, rainsodden old manor. As in a dream he turned the picture in his hand, and read on the other side the single word "Elizabeth."

The young man jammed open the little hooked window and let in the fresh, damp air. There was something about it all that mastered and oppressed like the sleepwaking fancy that ends in nightmare. The wet whiff from the fields brought him back. Presently he took up the little volume and opened it at random. Then he saw it was not a printed book, but filled with close, faded writing-evidently a daily record of events, his uncle's diary. He read through brief entries concerning the weather, the crops, the farm incidents and petty domestic detail of a hundred years before. Then he came to a date, following which there were closely written pages. The first sentence held him.

"November, the eighteenth day, 1848. On this night I have to set down that which, though unknown, it may be, to any other living soul, is of such a nature as to present my past to me in a new aspect, and must of a certainty much affect my remaining years. Of these, it is true, there may not be many, for, having turned sixty in August, and passed most of my days in loneliness and lacking that com

panionship of woman intended for man, I cannot hope, nor do I anticipate, that I may be spared the allotted scriptural time. Neither do I greatly desire it, for while this that hath come to me is of a nature to glorify my declining days, it must therefore all the more illumine that time which we are assured is still in store for us when the weariness and fevers and mistakes of earth are laid by and forgotten. So will I now set down with fidelity that which hath taken place upon this day.

"The morning being most gloomy and finding but little to engage me in the fields, I returned to the manor somewhat before mid-day and cast up my accounts to the moment; for, in the uncertainties of life, it may never be known when the true balance of one's affairs shall be required by those who follow him. Having finished with the figures, I ate sparingly of a very excellent dinner.

"After refreshing my body, I concerned my mind with the reading of those books which have long been my chief comfort, and found renewed enjoyment in the fine tragedy of 'Romeo and Juliet,' which play I witnessed the public performance of, in Philadelphia, but a fortnight since, and did marvel then, as now and heretofore, upon the excellence of the composition, as well as upon the rare example of mutual and undying

passion therein presented. When I had finished reading, and after some reflection on the joy and sorrowfulness of love, I rose, and taking my pipe, set out for a quiet visit and smoke with Caleb Merrifield, with whom, though he wedded the woman of my choice, I have long been in excellent friendship. For it was not Caleb who wrought my estrangement with Elizabeth, nor did he even meet her, I believe, until somewhat later."

The book rested on Harrington's knee as he looked out over the swimming meadows. Merrifield! The sound of it was familiar. It was in Bess's family, somewhere back; he did not know just where. A slight wound on his thumb got in forcing the rusty lock, convinced him that he was really awake. Once more he opened the old diary.

"I found Caleb in a mood that hath been much upon him of late, and in truth hath grown upon him greatly since the death of Elizabeth, five years ago. He sat gazing into the fire, and though he welcomed me with cordialness, he had the manner of being more inclined to listen than to be heard; so presently, when Elias Hart joined us, also with his pipe, it became a matter of conversation between Elias and myself, with Caleb listening, somewhat in the character of a respectful and attentive audience.

"I do not rightly remember in what manner we began our specu

lations upon affairs of love and such matters, though I am of the belief that in the course of our reflections upon the poets I let fall some word of the play which I had but recently seen enacted, and had also, but an hour before, perused in the leisure of my study; and this it would seem, presently diverted the talk into a somewhat different, though not displeasing channel. Or it may have been brought about through the presentation made by Elias of some ardent sonnets by the same author, and a surmise as to the object of the poet's passion. However it fell out we were in no great time discussing most earnestly the famous heart-affairs of history and such notable attachments as have become matter for the poet's pen. From these we came presently to those of a more recent happening, even to those within our immediate knowledge and acquaintance, the talk being, as I have said, between Elias and myself, with Caleb Merrifield listening considering the fire with much attention.

"Having got fairly set in this direction, it was but natural that we should review the subject of love in general, and it was no very long time before Elias and myself were engaged in a debate in which it was his pleasure to assume-and properly, Elias being married— that wedded life could show the more examples of lifelong devotion and unswerving faith, while I, as