The Sunday morning news. [volume] (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1886-1891, 1890-01-26

THERE WERE SOME BLACK LETTERS on IT
WHICH HE SPELLED OUT SLOWLY.
He turned presently to take up his
lantern. The fame was driven out sud-
denly by rush. Of cold-air; there was a
sound as OF distant thunder. The walls
of the tunnel had fallen behind himl
he was buried in a living gravel
The church bells began to ring. He
could hear them, dnlled and sweet, then
they were silent. No lower sound could
reach him. Butit was worth recording,
that through the final pain and horror
of the night which settled down upon
him he heard the birds twittering in tbs
trees overhead, heard the grasshoppers
chirp in the grass. There were voices
reached him, too--voices which had
long been silent; Bess calling to her
baby, Winny singing an old Scotch la
ment of which she once was fond He
knew it was but the delirium Of old
thoughts unclaimed, unruled by his will.
But the tears wet his eyes for the first
time for many years.
Three days passed, and Heath yet
lived. The candles he had brought
nourished him for time. When they
were gone he sat down passive. He
held the treasure in his hand, the deeds
to his place in the world, but he was a
man in utter darkness, starving to death
for a mouthful OF food. Thought.comes
fearlX fTi gafhi pssw il low mortal pain
homeless, nameless, with neither wife,
child nor friend to search for his bones,
or to say. with ever so little regret, "He
was here, and he is gone"
The bubble on the river would break
and die not less unmissed than he. The
physical torture of starvation gave him
not so much suffering as to know this at
last. He cried aloud. 1t seemed to
him, so terrible was the pain of soul
which thus uttered itself, that God him
self must hear and answer. But the
shock of his voice only loosened the
pebbles from the wall, and they rolled
rafting to the ground
Toward the close of the third dav.
when he lay down in a new place on
the bricks, a gust of damp air struck
his face. Then it occurred to him to
wonder why the vault had been free
from noxious gases. There must be
some opening to the outer air. Reused
and startled. he dragged himself up and
crawied to the wall from whence the
draught came. The earth was lightly
heaped; he cleared it away and found
q passage. 1t was, III fact, continue
ton of the tunnel in the opposite direc-
ton, but Heath was too weak to reason.
How long he was in creeping through
he never knew.
There was blast Of cool night air;
a heavy mass of tangled vines brushed
in his face; he thrust thein aside; a soft
light giimmered before his eyes; it was
the blue heaven studded with stars.
Leonard Heath crept out of the break
in the bank and stood in quaint old
fashioned garden about a cottage. A
bird, frightened in its sleep, chirped in
its nest in the cherry tree beside him;
the path ran between rows of privet
bushes and crimson altheas; the damp
night air was fragrant with the scent of
spice pinss
But in the evening air there came also
the sound OF woman's voice singing an
old Scotch lament. The door of the house
was partly made Of glass, and bright
fire light shone through it. He went to
it. Some figures, which his dim eyes
could scarcely distinguish were gathered
about the hearth. But in the warmest
corner an old leathern chair shone cheer
fully, vacant and waiting.
Then he opened the door, and, with a
feeble cry stood hpforo thoy,4
Later in the night, when Leonard
Heath. warmed and clothed and fed, sat
in the cong yass.4ils scat and they all gath
cred about him. he unfastened thecoDpss