Corvallis gazette. [volume] (Corvallis, Benton County, Or.) 1900-1909, 1901-01-01
q golden dream by a sharp pain in hei

neck anu IOuu OdIu.
Springing from her bed, she shrieked
for help, and, pursued by the assassin,
rushed into the hall. She gained
distant room in time to lock herself in.
At this instant her horrors were aug
mented by the report of pistol, imme-
diately followed by shrill scream
and then by another pistol shot, and
ere the echo had died away the assas-
sin burst the old door from its hinges
| and was in the room. The horror tn
dame endured as she crouched against
the wall, praying that the darkness
might shield her, curdled her blood in
her veins. But suddenly the assassin
sprung a light. At the sight of this
man, Instead of crouching in fear or
screaming with terror, the dame
| sprang to her feet, saying:
$50 it is you, John Bond, who have
returned to murder your wife-coW-
ardv'
"Hagw hissed the old man-yet he
was much younger than she, "do you
think because the devil lets you live
so long that you are to live forever
Tell me where you have hidden your
boards, and those of your first hus-
band, whom all men say you poisoned
to marry John Bond
'To tell you, / must leave this room, y
said Ursula, as her corpse-like visage
grew livid with hate and despair.
'sWhfther, treacherous hag?"
'HTo the cellar, John BOnd-come, y
and stepping boldly by him, she went
on along the hail. lighted by the thief's
lantern, which he carried.
"If suspect treaehery|f you cry
for help-I will shoot you dead, Ur-
sula Bond" Ursula led the way.
Lift that trap, John Bond" said
she, pointing to a heavy iron ring i'm,
bedded in the floor.
Ursula grasped the ring with both
hands and strove to raise it, till, grow
ing impatient, he grasped it himself
and raised a trap door about three feet
square. AS he staggered with the
weight Ursula fell against him and he
fell headlong into the aperture, but as
he fell he let fall his lantern and with
his left hand grasped the edge of the
trap. Ursula, fsrocious with hate
stamped upon the clinging fingers, and
as her feet were bare, making no I'M
preston upon the desperate clutch, SHE
heayed at the trap door and let it fal
upon the assassin's hand. Dame Ur
sula fell with bullet in her brair
across the trap.
The assassin fell to the bottom of {
deep and narrow cellar, damp and dis
NAL, and made more horrible by tht
rays shed by his lantern. The tide wa.
rising in the bay-already the waite
was trickling through the stones O.
the foundation.
While Bond entered the house from
the front, his accomplice. a bruta
wretch from France, had gained 1
noiseless entrance from the rear. Hal
Walter been at his post this would no
have happened, but poor I4eonora, hor
rified at the thought of what nigh
. happen to her lover, had sought hin
!. instead of her couch.
Not until the sudden flash from tn
French burglars lantern streame,
across the room did Walter remembe
, his self-imposed Office, and as b
sprang to his feet the burglar, turnin
to fly, was shot through the lungs. Blu
{ as he fell he returned the shot, an
Walter, with the thought that his skull
was crushed, fell senseless. Poor Lee
nora had already swooned.
, When Walter regained his senses, b
J found his sweetheart weeping an
chafing his hands, and he was delight
{ ed to discover that the robbers bulle
had only stunned him. The Sburgla
) was dead.
) Not six months from that night Wa
ter became the husband of the wealth
Leonora, who was sole heiress of Dam
! Ursula's wealth, much of which in gol
was found secreted about the mansion
The year following, as Walter was d
recting the excavations for new ed
! fee where the old one had stood, hi
!, workmen discovered a lantern an
near it human skeleton.-Clevela
! Plain Dealer.
l