The Monitor. [volume] (Woodstown, N.J.) 1884-1892, 1890-08-01

let of lced champagne been more deli
cious to my palate!
How long a time | passed in my dis
NAL prison house it is impossible to say.
Days, nights-who can measure them
under such circumstances? Finally / had
exhausted my last crumb, and starya-
ton stared me in my face. How could
Inow sustain life: Oddly enough l just
then remembered the legend of the Beau
MANOR arms.
Beaumanoir was a gallant French
character of the olden time, who, single
handed, commended with a score of En-
glish knights. Covered with wounds, he
asked his squire for water, but water
was not to be had. Drink thy blood
Beaumanoir.!' was the reply of the
squire, and "Boire ton sang, Beauma-
noir," became afterward the motto of
the family. Before l died | could open
n vein with my knife, and initiate the
example of the gallant Paladin.
But first | would make u desperate at
tempt to find an outlet. Every match
had now been burned, and l had to work
in utter darkness. Frenzied and desper-
ate, l rushed from gallery to gallery,
leaping the chains where they impeded
my progress. At lastI thought l encoun-
tered a current of fresh air. l seized
what l conjectured to be a thigh bone
projecting from a pile of them and gave
it q wrench.
In an instant n mass Of bones and
skulls gave way, and rolled down on mo
in a laundering avalanche, while a voice
exclaimed, The intruder who invades
the sanctuary of the dead shall perish
by the dead"
The horror of the catastrophe over
whelmed me, and l lost my conscious
ness. When I recovered l was lying in
my bed in the Grand hotel, with the
sun shining on the glass gallery opposite
my window. There was a tap at my
door. 1 sprang up, opened it and admit
ted my travelling companion.
well, old fellow said he, "how did
YOU sleep after our visit to the Cata
combs yesterday
Yesterday echoed.
YES. had the nightmare"
"But how did l escape?:' / asked.
Escape? What do you mean by es-
Gaping? You rode home in the carriage
With me and the ladies'"
But that undertaken who thrust him
self into our party
There was no undertaken, my boy.
You must have been dreaming"
mot at all, unless I was dreaming
wide awake"
people sometimes do that"
you did not observe anything queer
about me in the Catacombs?:'
"Not at all. thought you were un-
usually lively and wide awake"
Then l told him my story as l have re-
lated it.
He shook his head.
''Queer things have happened in the
Catacombs, sir" he said, s.to quote the
words of your mysterious friend, phi
losopher and guide. But I wouldn't ad-
wise you to let your fancies run away
with you, for there is a place near Paris
called Charenton madhouse and
when a fellow gets too queer in his up
per story his friends feel obliged to pack
him in a straitjacket, and send him
down there formedical treatment. Don't
impose the unpleasant task on me. And
now come and breakfast with us at the
Cafe Anglais."
This is the way in which the strangest
occurrences of life are treated by our
matter-of-fact friends. For my part ]
shall always insist that my visit to the
Catacombs was one of the mysteries of
Paris" whatever others may say about
my laboring under an Authorization
New York World.