The Cook County herald., 1905-09-09
lhe OrCerer
St Gle, ,
By PROF. WILLIAM H. PECK.

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the great iron door, which at that time
/ was closed, but not bolted, or he could
never have opened it. The resistance
to his advance at that time was caused
by the firmness of the rust, which held
the door closed.
| When Clarence forced the door back
upon it's hinges it had hidden smaller
iron door, which opened into that
Sosia arrived behind the door of the
dungeon before Clarence entered the
latter.
Clarence came on through tie other
passage, unaware that the door of the
dungeon concealed the door of anoth-
er passage. He had never looked be-
hind the iron door, nor aid he imagine
that anything more than solid wall was
behind it.
Holding his lamp a little elevated
to guide his steps, he passed the iron
door and entered the dungeon.
Sosia, hidden by the open door, and
peering into the dungeon through a
crevice between the hinges, was able
to watch the movements of his in
tended captive.
Clarence walked across the dungeon
floor, going straight and without pause
toward the entrance of that passage
which led to where he had left Helen
Beauclair.
The spot was diagonally opposite
to where Sosia lurked. The sorcerer
could see every movement that Clar-
ence made.
Suddenly Clarence halted, recoiled
a pace, and exclaimed:
"Great heaven! what is this?"
He had just perceived the stone
door.
He wheeled about. his face pale,
surprised and full of dismay, and at
the same instant Sosia hurled himself
against the outer side of the iron door.
Well oiled and cunningly prepared
for this sudden violence, the door
swept swiftly around upon it's hinges
and clashed loudly as it closed, and
Clarence received severe shock as he
hurled his weight against it.
"Oh!" he gasred, this is not
chance! This is a trap! I am !ost!"
AS he spoke thus he heard the clang
and clash of bolts and bars on the
other side of the door.
"Fo, there!" shouted Clarence. "To
whom do l owe this? Speak,"
But he waited in vain for reply to
his words.
Turning his eyes toward his lamp,
which lay upon its side where he had
dropped it, he saw that it was about to
go out. He hurried to it, picked it up,
and advanced again to the stone door,
He examined this in vain to find
some means of moving it, His fercest
lunges against it would not ven jar
this solid door. Its surface, hewn and
smooth, presented no place large
enough to permit him to insert even
finger nail. How far it extended on
either side into the sides of the pas
sage it blocked he could not Judge.
But between it's to pand that of the
passage was a space more than a foot
in length and about four inches wide.
This space was about on a level with
Clarence's waist as he stood erect.
He knelt and shouted into this open
ing:
"Eelen! Helen!"
He had scarcely any hope to hear
her reply; or any reply more than
what came back to hin--the hollow
echoing, through the passage and in
the cave beyond, of his own voice.
''She is not there or she would re-
ply," he muttered. "Some one has
carried her off. Some one has entrap-
ped me. Who?"
There was legend Of which he had
heard in Kilronan. It had been told
him by the old fisherman, few hours
before; a legend which said that once
a beautiful peasant girl, to put to
scorn the superstitious~ fears of ner
comrades, had ventured to visit the
ruins of Dun Aengus alone, and F. at
night; and that she had never been
seen nor he:srd of again; that the spir-
it of the mist had seized her; that her
lover had on the next day ventured in
search of her, and that he had never
been seen nor heard of after.
Clarence Darrell. however, was of
too strong mind to believe that 9TH
>er than mortal hands had shared in
thus entrapping him.
Receiving no reply to Ills shouts, he
thrust his hand and arm through the
opening.
This only enabled him to detect that
the stone door was nearl va foot thick.
So far as his extended fingers could
grope. about on the Other side of the
impossible obstacle, they felt only
smoOthly-hewn surface.
He arose from his examination of
this door and turned his face toward
the outer one. +. Z
The light Of his lamp fell squarely
upon the inner surface of the iron
door, and he now perceived, what he
had not seen before. a hole near the
center of the door. about two inches
in diameter. ~.
The door was of solid iron. about an