Gloucester County Democrat. (Woodbury, N.J.) 1878-1932, 1907-06-06

America, SO much absorbed In his re-
searches that he had written no pri-
| waite letters worth speaking Of, and II
any friend were asked his whereabouts
he was likely to reply:
AOh, LermontoH is in some German
university town or in England or tray
cling elsewhere. haven't seen him
or heard OF him for months. Lost in a
wilderness or in an experiment per-
| haps."
These unhappy meditations were in
terrupted by the clang of bolts. He
| thought at first it was his own door
that was being opened, but a moment
later knew it was the door of the next
cell upstream. The sound of course
could not penetrate the extremely thick
wall, but came through the aperture
whose roof arched the watercourse.
From the voices he estimated that sew
eral prisoners were being; put into one
cell. and he wondered whether or not
he cared for companion, 1t would all
depend. If fellow prisoners hated each
other, their enforced proximity might
prove unpleasant.
eve are hungry" he heard one say.
"Bring us food"
The jailer laughed
Il viii give you something to drink
first
"That's rightr' three voices shouted.
sVodza, vodka!'
Then the door changed shut again,
and he heard the murmur of voices in
Russian, but could not make out what
was said. One of the new prisoners,
cropping round, appeared to have struck
the stone bench, as he himself had
done. The man in the next cell swore
coarsely, and Lermontoh, judging from
such snatches of their conversation as
he could hear that they were persons
of a low order, felt no desire to make
their more intimate acquaintance and
SO did not shout to them, as he had In
tended to do. And now he missed
something that had become familiar;
thought it was cigarette he desired,
for the one he had lit had been smoked
to his very lips, then he recognized It
was the murmur of the stream that
had ceased.
"Ah. they can shut it off," he said;
sthat's interesting. / must investigate
and learn whether or no there is COM
munication between the cells; not very
likely though
He crawled on hands and knees I'M
til he came to the bed Of the stream,
which was now damp, but empty.
Kneeling down in its course, he work
ed his way toward the lower cell and,
as he expected, came to stout iron bars.
Crouching thus he sacrificed second
match and estimated that the distance
between the two cells was as much as
ten feet of solid rock and saw also
that behind the perpendicular iron bars
were another horizontal set, then an
other perpendicular, then a fourth
horizontal.
While in this position he was star
tied by a piercing scream to the rear.
He backed out from the tunnel and
stood upright once more. He heard the
sound Of people splashing round in the
water. The screamer began to jabber
like a maniac, punctuating his rawlings
with shrieks Another was cursing
vehemently and a third appealing to
the saints Lermontof quickly knelt
down in the watercourse. this time
facing the upper cell, and struck his
third match. He saw that a steel
shield, reminding him of the thin shut
ter between the lenses Of a camera,
had been shot across the tunnel be-
hind the second group Of cross bars,
and as an engineer he could not but
admire the skill of the practical ex-
pert who had constructed this diabol-
ical device, for in spite of the pressure
on the other side hardly q drop Of wa
ter oozed through. He tried to reach
the shield, but could not. 1t was just
beyond the touch Of his fingers with
his arm thrust through the two sets
Of bars, but if he could have stretched
that far with the first bar retarding
his shoulder, he knew his hand would
be helpless even if he had some weap-
on to puncture the steel shield. The
men would be drowned before he could
accomplish anything unless he was at
the lever in the passage outside.
Crawling into his cell again, he heard
no more of the chatter and cries Of
the maniac, and he surmised that the
other two were fighting for places on
bench or shelf, which was amply large
enough to have supported both had
they not been too demented with fear
to recognize that fact. The cursing
man was victorious, and now he stood
alone on the shelf. roaring maledic-
tons. Then there was the sound of q
plunge, and Lermontoff, standing there
helpless and shivering, heard the pris-
oner swim round and round his cell
like furious animal, muttering and
swearing
Don't exhaust yourself Ike that"
shouted Lermontoff III you want to
live, cling to the hole at either of the
.a-Q