St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1885-08-16
tain that the warder would not give the in

ms"
1.-The grating must have been stolen, -
said SandOrf.
''Stolenl and by whom?" asked Zathmar.
1.-The day we We're arrested. it was still in
the drawer on my desk, where the police
took it FROM"
This was. indeed, ineXplcable. That the
letter had been found on the pigeon. that it
had been copied before being sent TO its
destination, that the house where the per-
son to whom it was addressed had been dis
covered-all that could be explained But
that the cryptographic dispatch could have
been deciphered without the grating by
which it had been formed was incompre-
hensible.
And. BESIDES" continued Sandorf. ''we
know that the letter was read. and it could
not have been read without the grating! 1t
was this letter which put the police on our
traces. and it was on it that the whole
charge was based"
1T matters very little, after all, answered
Bat hory.
ION the contrary, it does matter" said
SandOrf. 1--WE may have been betrayed.
And if there has been a traitor-nOt to
know"
Sandorf suddenly stopped. The name of
Sarcany occurred to him; but he abandoned
the thought at once without caring to COM
municate il to his companions.
Sandorf and his companions continued
their conversation on all that was unintelli-
gible with regard to these matters far into
the night
In the morning they were awakened from
sound sleep by the entry of the warder. 1t
was the morning of their last dav but one.
The execution was fixed to take place in
twenty-four hours from then.
Bathory asked the warder if he might be
permitted to 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 pris-
oners this last consolation, inaSmuch as
they had conducted the affair throughout
with the greatest secrecy, and not even the
name OF the fortress which served them as
prison had been revealed.
''If we write letters. will they be for
warded?" asked Sandorf.
Il will bring you paper, pens and ink"
replied the warder. land promise to give
your letters into the governors hands,"
I'VE are much obliged to you" said San
dorf. eff you do that you do all you can!
How shall we reward you?"
Your thanks are sufficient. gentlemen"
said the warder, who could not conceal his
emotion.
He soon brought in the writing materials
The prisoners spent the greater part of the
day IN making their last arrangements.
Sandorf said all that fathers heart could
prompt in his instructions regarding his
baby girl. who would soon be an orphan:
BathOry all that a husband and father could
think of in bidding 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 i'm
their writing, how many times did they stop
to liStenl How many times did they seek
to discover if some distant noise was not
coming along the corridors of the donionl
How many times did it seem to them as
though the door of their cell had opened.
and that they were to be permitted 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 heart
rending scene.
The door did not open. Doubtless neither
Madame Bathory nor her son, nor the stew
ard, Lendeck, to whose care Sandorf's
daughter had been given, knew no more
where the prisoners had been taken TO after
their arrest than Borik 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 and 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 in
their memories with an intensity OF impress
sion quite supernatural. 1t was not with
the past, as affecting the past, that they
were entirely concerned; the recolections
seemed all to shape themselves with view
to the present. Was il, then. a preScience
of that eternity which was about TO open
Oh them, of that incomprehensible and in
commensurate 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 that had taken possession of him. lie
could not doubt but what there had been
treachery in this mysterious affair. For a
man of his character to die without punish
ing the traitor, whoever he was. without even
knowing who had betrayed him. was to die
twice over. Who had got hold of this mes
sage to which the police owed the discovery
of the conspiracy and the arrest of the con
SpiratOrs? Who had read it, who had given
it up, who had sold it, perhaps? Ponder
ing over this insoiuble problem, Sandorfs
excited brain became prey to a sort of
fever. And while his friends wrote on. OF
remained silent and motionleSs, he strobe
about uneasy and agitated, pacing the floor
of his cell like wild beast shut up in a
cage.
A strange, but not unintel-
iigible in accordance with acoustcal law
came at last TO his aid and whispered the
secret he had diSpaired of discovering.
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, onto which the different cells
opened. In this angle. just where the door
was hinged, he seemed TO hear a murmur of
voices, distant and hardly recognizable. At
first he paid no attention 10 this, but sud-
denly his name was prOnounced-his own
and he listened intently. At once he
detected an acoustical phenomenon.
such as is observable in the
interior of galleries and domes.
or under vaults of ellipsoidal form. The
voice, travelling from one point of the
eclipse, after following the contour of the
walls without being perceptible at any in
termediate point, is plainly heard at the
other focus. Such is the phenomenon met
with in the crypts of the Pantheon, in
Paris: in the interior of the dome of ST.
Peters, at Rome and the whispering gallery
at Paurs, in London. The fainteSt word
uttered at enc focus of these curves is dis
tinctly 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 sign he called his two companions
to him. The three stood listening.
Fragments of phrases distinctly reached