{"product_id":"2940012757821","title":"BARNABY","description":"BARNABY\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCHAPTER I\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe lamp flickered and jumped at the stamping in the bar.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThere was a frantic quality in that noise, laughter and exclamation\u003cbr\u003emixed with a wild shouting that made the crazy partition quiver.  It\u003cbr\u003ewas a mad reaction from the common weight of despair.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFrom the bed in the room behind you could watch the door....\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eParadise Town was a broken link in the chain of civilization; it might\u003cbr\u003ehave been written in letters of rusted blood on the map.  Its pioneers\u003cbr\u003ehad forsaken it cursing, its trees had been burned for firewood, its\u003cbr\u003eearth had been riddled in vain for gold.  All that was left of it was\u003cbr\u003ehuddled near the shanty where men could buy drink and blur the spell of\u003cbr\u003eawful loneliness that shut them away from life.  It was worse at night.\u003cbr\u003eWith the darkness fell a heavier sense of the distance of human help,\u003cbr\u003eand Paradise was an island in a black sea of haunted land.  East and\u003cbr\u003ewest, wide and silent, the unknown emptiness lapped it in.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIll-luck and some bitter trick had stranded the M'Kune Tragedy Company\u003cbr\u003ein this dreadful place.  Night after night they played in a shingle hut\u003cbr\u003ewith their useless scenery stacked outside; night after night M'Kune\u003cbr\u003ebroke it to his scared company that they hadn't yet got their fares.\u003cbr\u003eFear and a kind of superstition worked in their minds until they were\u003cbr\u003eseized with panic.  In the daylight the men hung about the bar,\u003cbr\u003emuttering; and the women herded by themselves, packed like hens in a\u003cbr\u003estrange run, hysterically afraid.  Prisoners in a desert, when night\u003cbr\u003ehad fallen they wandered away to the railroad track and watched.\u003cbr\u003eTowards midnight would rise a red gleam on the far horizon, and they\u003cbr\u003ewould hear a distant rumbling, gathering to a roar, till the darkness\u003cbr\u003ewas split by a whizzing bar of light.  By it went, the great, glaring\u003cbr\u003ething full of life, terrible in its rush, and leaving the night\u003cbr\u003eimmeasurably darker.  Among the watchers the men would affect to\u003cbr\u003ewhistle.  If they couldn't board her to-night they might manage it\u003cbr\u003eto-morrow....  But the women caught each other's hands fast, and\u003cbr\u003eshuddered.  Latterly they had felt as if the train were a devil that\u003cbr\u003ecounted and kept them there.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut their desperate plight inspired them.  Never in their lives had\u003cbr\u003ethese poor mummers so hurled themselves into their parts; never again\u003cbr\u003ewould they murder and cheat and punish with such passionate realism.\u003cbr\u003eTheir fate hung upon it.  Penniless and trapped, their solitary chance\u003cbr\u003eof rescue lay in witching all Paradise to stare at them and furnish the\u003cbr\u003ewherewithal.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Keep it up,\" urged M'Kune when a tired actress flagged.  The hut was\u003cbr\u003efull and airless, but a few men were sullenly hanging back in the\u003cbr\u003edoorway, drawn thither, but arguing if it was worth it to step inside.\u003cbr\u003e\"Keep it up!\" hissed M'Kune.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd the heroine flung herself between the hero and the villain's knife,\u003cbr\u003eslipped as she ran, and was hurt, but struggled up and cried out her\u003cbr\u003etottering defiance, bringing the house down before she dropped on her\u003cbr\u003eface.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThat was the last night of crazed endeavour.  The curtain came rocking\u003cbr\u003edown, and the villain--M'Kune--cheated the gallows to run feverishly\u003cbr\u003ethrough his receipts.  All Paradise was vociferating behind that\u003cbr\u003eflapping rag, but amidst the din the players had heard their manager's\u003cbr\u003eyell of triumph.  They had made up their fares at last.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe Tragedy Company scattered and fled, each in search of his own\u003cbr\u003ebelongings; but they had little to gather, and the night wind blew them\u003cbr\u003etogether like drifting leaves.  They durst not squander their means of\u003cbr\u003eescaping, durst not loiter.  The train, thundering by in its midnight\u003cbr\u003epassage, must lift them out of this nightmare town.  Waiting they\u003cbr\u003efilled the bar, singing and shouting like lunatics, beside themselves\u003cbr\u003ewith joy.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe door in the partition rattled, but stayed shut, and on the inner\u003cbr\u003eside was silence.  Nobody lifted the latch, though the bursts of noise\u003cbr\u003eshook it from time to time.  A selfish panic had left no room for any\u003cbr\u003eother feeling.  Probably they had all forgotten that one of the Tragedy\u003cbr\u003eCompany who could not escape out of Paradise; and it was all in vain\u003cbr\u003ethat the crazy bedstead was turned in its corner to face the door.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eShe lay without moving.  It seemed as if there were nothing of her but\u003cbr\u003ethe long black hair covering the pillow.  In their hurry those who had\u003cbr\u003ecarried her in had not taken out all the pins, and a few glistened in\u003cbr\u003eit still.  Looking closer, one saw that her hands were clenched tight\u003cbr\u003eagainst her breast, as if to keep her heart quiet.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHow fast the minutes went!  It must be nearly train time.  And surely\u003cbr\u003ethere was a vast thing, pulsing, pulsing, like an engine, far away in\u003cbr\u003ethe night?","brand":"SAP","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47081738141936,"sku":"2940012757821","price":0.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940012757821_p0.jpg?v=1763572043","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940012757821","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}