Evening capital journal. (Salem, Or.) 1888-1893, 1892-10-22

6DtTduCt W a bi1SiO 10y va wv .
blessed light, and to know the full
torture of eternal darkness you have
only once to experience it. The
deadly silence, too, of the place was
awful; my breathing sounded to me
like the kissing of furnace. ]
could plainly hear my heart beat,
and even, it seemed to me, the blood
surge through my veins.
when / tried to move, sharp pains
shot through my whole body, but !
soon found to my joy that / WIS
only bruised and no bones broken.
God knows why l was not killed, for
the floor of my prison was of solid
rock.
"How far had fallen2 With an
effort dragged myself to my feet,
and taking a trinket hung to my
watch chain, hurled it with all my
strength up into the darkness. 1t
struck. but not before its force was
was nearly spent. The last hope left
me. | was buried alive in pit--a
pit more than hundred feet deepl
Overcome by the anguish Of my
thoughts and the oppression of the
pitchy darkness, sank again to the
ground and gave myself up to utter
despair.
After awhile, an eternity in
length, determined to explore the
extent of the cavern into which fate
had plunged me and which was des
tined to be my grave. Perhaps, too,
a sound that for a little while past
had been gradually becoming audi
BILE to me had something to do with
rousing me to action.
This noise came from a distance
and to my heated fancy and sensitive
ears sounded like the wheeling of a
subterranean bellows. / cautiously
moved forward and found that the
ground seemed to slope toward the
point whence the noise came.
walking on slowly with out
stretched hands, groping, you may
say, it was not very long before j
struck against wall of rock. Re
tracing my way came against an
other, equally solid.
81 am swallowed in a cleft /
thought ! shudderingly, high, mar
row, burrowing deeper and deeper
with every inch and leading-God
knows where Ito the bowels of the
earth perhapsr
Crushed by this discovery, for
awhile / was powerless to advance a
step, but then, as l had nothing to
lose, determined to make an effort
to press on and leave no stone un-
turned that might set me at liberty.
Creeping little by little down the
stony gorge, ! was at last close to
the point whence those painting puffs
came. My heart beat like hammer.
1T is precipice, thought, and
the wheeling sound the wind in its
depths. Better be killed outright
than die a slow death of starvationr
"And l put out my foot expecting
to encounter only space. Instead l
stumbled over something soft and
fell forward. Blindly ! felt about
me and my hand touched something
warm-a human face
II felt again, running my hand
along the body as the blind explore,
and made out a dress Like flash
it dawned upon me. Nina, Nina" ]
cried aloud, my voice rolling and re
verberating like the voice of a thou
sand.
''She was not dead either, for it
was the sound of her breathing that
l had taken for a wind in the subter
ranean depths OF the smothered rush.
ing of volcanic stream. caught
her hands, chafed them in mine
but it is useless, monsieur, to go over
again those dragging moments of ag
ony when / worked over the half
dead body of my love, or those mo-
ments of mingled joy and torture
when her returning consciousness
had to struggle with the fearful real
ity.
~ told her as well as could where
we were and how we had come there
To her piteous pleas for comfort !
could only respond with sorrowful
silence or an equally piteous entreaty
to her to be hopeful.
"At that moment, sir-how