The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1886-01-01

secrecy, and not even the name of the
fortress which served them as o prison
had been revealed.
eff we write letters will they be for
warded asked Sandorf
al will bring you paper, pens and
ink" replied the warder and 1 prom
Use to give your letters into the Gov
ernors hands"
"We are much obliged to you" said
Sandorf "If you do that you do all
you can How shall we reward you?
your thanks are sufficient, gentle
men," said the warder, who could not
conceal his emotion.
He soon brought in the writing mate
rails. The prisoners spent the greater
part of the day in making their last
arrangements. Sandorf said all that a
fathers heart could prompt in his in
structions regarding his Laby girl, who
would soon be an orphan Bathory all
that q husband and father could
think of in bidding loving farewell
to his wife and sen rathmar all that
a mater could sly to al old servant
who remained his only friend.
But during the Jay, although absorb
ed 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
he permitted one last embrace of wife.
son or daughter! That would have
been some consolation! But, in truth, the
pittiless order deprived them of this
last adieu and spared them the heart
rending scene.
The door did not open. Doubtless
neither Nine. Bathory or her son, nor
the steward, Lendeck, to whose care
Sandorf's daughter had been given, knew
no more where the prisoners were taken
to after their arrest than Borlk in his
prison at Trieste. Doubtless also. neither
of them knew of the doom in store for
the conspirat rs.
Thus passed the earlier hours of the
day. Occasionally Sandsord and his
casionally they would be silent for some
time, and then the whole of their lives
would be lived ever again in their men,
cries with an intensity of impression
quite supernatural. 1t was not with the
past, as affecting the past. that they
were entirely concerned; the recollec-
tions seemed all to shape themselves with
view to the present. Was it then.
prescience of that eternity which was
about to open on them. of that incom-
prehensible and incommensurate state
of things which is called the infinite
Bnthory and Zathmar abandoned
themselves without reserve to their rev.
cries, but Sandorf was invincibly domi-
mated by al idea which hadtaken possess
sion of him. He could not doubt but
what there had been treachery in this
mysterious affair. For man of his
character to die without Furnishing the
traitor, whatsoever he was, without know
ing even who had betrayed him, was to
die twice over. Who had got hold of
this message to which the police owed
the disc, very of the conspiracy and he
arrest of the conspirators? Who had
read it, who had given If MP, who had
sold it, perhaps? PonT erin over this
insoluble problem, 81. d is excited
brain became prey to IL sort of fever.
And while his friends wrote on or re-
manned silent and motionless, he strobe
uneasy and agitated, pacing the floor
OF his cell like wild beast shut up i'll a
cage.
A strange but not unin-
telligibIe in accordance with acoustical
law-came ut last TO his aid and Whisper
ed the secret he had despaired of dis
covering.
Several times he had stopped short as
he turned at he angle which the dividing
wall Of the cell made with the main wall
of the corridor, on 70 which the different
c. lis opened. In this angle just where
the door was hinged, he seemed to hear
q murmur of vo ces, distant and hardly
reco8niz bic. AT first he paid no atten-
ton to this but suddenly name was
pronounced-his own-and he listened
iptently. At once he detected an ac-
oustlcai phenomenon, such as is observ-
able in the interiors of galleries ana
domes or under vaults of ellipsoidal
form. The voice travelling from one
point of the ellipse, after following the
contour OF the walls without being per-
ceptible at any intermediate 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 ut
Rome, and in the whispering gallery Mt
, St poY1l'o in london Tho foint..Gt