Savannah morning news. [volume] (Savannah) 1868-1887, 1885-08-23

bathoeE asked the warder if he might
| De permitted 10 see his family.
The warder replied that he had no orders
on the subject. 1t was not likely that
| the government would consent to give the
prisoners this last consolation, inasmuch
as they had conducted the affair through
| out Win the greatest secrecy, and not
even the name OF the fortress which
served them as prison had been re-
| vealed.
"lf we write letters, will they be for
Wattledy" asked Sandorf.
II will bring you paper, pens, and ink"
| replied the warder; land | promise to
| give your letters into the Governors
| hands"
"We are much Obliged to you" said
sandort. III you do that, you do all you
can! How shall we reward youY'
"Your thanks are sufficient, gentle
| men," said the warder, who could not
conceal his emotion.
He soon brought in the writing mater
lals. The prisoners spent the greater
part OF the day III making their last ar
rangements. Sandort said all that a
fathers heart could prompt in his insJruc-
tons regarding his baby girl, who would
soon be an orphan; Bathory all that hus-
| band and father could think of in bidding
a loving farewell to his wife and son;
Zathmar all that master could say to
an old servant who remained his only
friend.
But during the day, although absorbed
In their writing, how many times did they
stop to listen! How many times did they
seek to discover if some distant noise was
| not coming along the corridors of the
! donJon! How many times did it seem to
them as though the door OF their cell had
| opened, and that they were to De permit
| ted one last, embrace of wife, son, or
daughter! That would have been some
consolation But, in truth. the pitiless
Order deprived them of this last adieu
and spared them the heartrending scene.
The door did not open. Doubtless nel-
ther Madame Bathory nor her son, nor the
steward, Lendeck, to whose care Sandorfs
daughter had been given, knew
no more where the prisoners had
| been taken to after their
arrest than Borlk in his prison at Trieste.
Doubtless, also, neither knew of the doom
in store for the cOnspirators.
Thus passed the earlier hours of the
day. Occasionally SandOrf aud his friends
would talk for a while. Occasionally
they would be silent for some time, and
then the whole OF their lives would be
lived over again III their memories with
an intensity of impression quite super
| natural. 1t was not with the past as
efecting the past, that they were entirely
concerned; the recollections seemed all TO
/ ohdpG buShiSClFCS VIII u view 10 tue pre-
sent. Was 1t, then, prescience OF that
eternity which was about to open on them,
of that incOmprehensible and ineOmmen-
surate state of things which is called the
infinite?
BathOry and Zathmar abandoned them
selves without reserve to their reveries,
but Sandorf was invincibly dominated by
an idea which had taken possession of
him. He could not doubt but what there
had been treachery in this mysterious
affair. For man OF his character to
die without punIshing the traitor, who
| ever he was, without knowing even who
had betrayed him, was to die twice over.
Who had got hold OF this message to
which the police owed the discovery OF
the conspiracy and the arrest of the con-
spiratOrs? Who had read il, who had
given 1t up, who had sold it, perhaps?
POndering over this insoluble problem,
Sandorfs excited brain became a prey
/ to a sort of lever. And while his friends
| wrote on, or remained silent and motion
less. he strobe about, uneasy and agitated,
pacing the floor OF his cell like wild beast
shut up in a cage.
A Observation-Disclosures but not unin-
| telligible, in accordance with acoustical
law-came at last to his aid and whisp-
cred the secret he had despaired of dis
| covering.
Several times he had stopped short as
he turned at the angle which the dividing
| wall of the cell made with the main wall
| of the corridor, on 10 which the different
cells opened. In this angle, just where
the door was hinged, he seemed TO hear
murmur of voices, distant and hardly
recognizable. At first he paid no atten-
tiOn to this, but suddenly a name was
| prOnounced-hls Own-and he listened in
tently. At once he detected an aeoustical
phenomenon, such as is observable in the
interiors of galleries and domes, or under
vaults of ellpsoidal form. The voice,
travelling from one point of the ellipse,
after following the contour OF the walls
without being perceptible at any inter-
| mediate point. is plainly heard at the
other focus. Such is the phenomenon
met with in the crypt of the Pantheon, in
Paris, in the interior OF the dome Of st.
Peters, at Rome, and in the whispering
gallery at st. Paul's in London. The
faintest word uttered at one focus OF
these curves is distinctly heard at the
focus opposite.
There could be no doubt that two or
more persons were talking either in the
corridor, or in a cell situated at the end Of
the diameter, the focal point of which was
close to the door OF the cell occupied by
Sandorf.
BY a sign he called his two compan-
| ions to him. The three stood listening.
Fragments Of phrases distinctly reached
their ears; phrases broken of aud diving
away as every now and then the speakers
moved from and towards the point
whose position determined the pheno-
menon.
And these are the phrases they heard at
different Intervals
Tomorrow. after the execution, you
will be free"
"And then Count sandOres goods We
SHARE
=
"without me you would never have
deciphered that message"
=
"And without me, If had not taken it
from the pigeon, you would never have
got hold Of II"
"well, no one would suspect that the
police owe"
.
Gwen the prisoners have no suspicion"
. q
"Neither relatives nor friends are com
ing 10 see Them"
.