title: Shackles of Sunlight
author:  J Daniel Layfield 
description: When he's not writing or spending time with his wife and two children, Daniel works as a senior network engineer for a technology consulting firm. He was born and raised about 30 miles south of Birmingham, AL, in the same town he still calls home. Daniel graduated from UAB in 1998 with a B.S. in Biology and thoughts of entering med school. Instead, he worked as a research assistant for two years, before changing career paths and going in to the technology field around 2000. He has been married since 1998 and has two children.
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  www.blackmask.com
  
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  Problem of the Knotted Cord
  
  
  This page copyright © 2003 Blackmask Online.
  
  
  
  
  
  # Problem of the Knotted Cord
  
  
  ### Jacques Futrelle
  
  
  This page copyright © 2003 Blackmask Online.
  
  
  http://www.blackmask.com  
    
  
      
  
  Etext from Futrelle.com
  
  
  With the brilliant glare of the noonday sun shining full into his
  
  
  upturned eyes, a venerable man sat beside an open window. The
  
  
  gray-crowned head was a noble one, but strength and rugged manhood was
  
  
  gone; there was only the weakness of years and disaster, illumined and
  
  
  softened by a smile—the appealing, pathetic smile of helplessness. The
  
  
  window framed a vista of green landscape, broken by a dimpled splotch
  
  
  of blue where the sea ran in and lapped the shore, and, far away, a
  
  
  village sprinkled on the hills. But he looked upon it all with
  
  
  sightless eyes—eyes which turned instinctively toward the light as the
  
  
  blind ever seek a ray through their enshrouding gloom. A grateful