The sea coast echo. [volume] (Bay Saint Louis, Miss.) 1892-current, 1909-10-16

July 81 could not IND time to Searcn
for the secret passage until last Thurs
day, when all of the guests, except Be-
atrice, departed.
That night Beatrice and crept noise
lessly down to the library, where we
conducted very thorough and system
attic seach. But all our humping on
the panels, and search for trap doors
proved unsuccessful, and little before
midnight we crept back upstairs, rather
crestfallen, and tried to sleep, at least,
did, for nothing ever seems to disturb
Beatrice, and she was wandering placid
lily in the Gland o. Dreams" almost as
soon as her head touched the pillow
| tossed and rolled. The clock in the
front hall struck off-the hours, one, two
three with a dreary, dull tone. After
that fell into sort of half doze, which
ended in horrible nightmare. Iseemed
to be back down in the library; a sort of
invisible watcher of the tradegy which
had been enacted there so many years
before. l could see my grandmother
speaking with dusty traveled-stalned
figure in a tattered grey uniform, who
seemed to plead with her, but to no
avail, for she turned and left the room,
locking the door after her. The soldier
left alone, fell upon his knees as ii IN
prayer, his head bent forward touching
the wall; then strange thing happened;
the panel where his head rested slid
noiselessly pack. The soldier arose,
turned his face udward, as if in mute
thanksgiving to his God who had an
swered his prayer, then stepped through
the opening and disappeared down a
fight of steps. The panel closed with a
crash, and l at last found my voice, ut
tered loud scream, and awoke to find
Beatrice sitting up in bed beside me,
regarding me with pale terrified face
"For Heavens sake, Patricia" she said
what is the matter with you? You have
been groaning as if you were dying
and when I touched you to awaken you
you screamed as if you were being MUIR
dered."
l hastily related my dream, which
scrambled out of bed, slipped on dress
ing gowns, and put sandals on our feet
provided ourselves with a fresh candle
also few matches, and hurried down tc
the library.
In feve1i5l, haste went over to the
spot, where in my vision | had seen the
Union soldier kneel, and pressed on the
upper part of the panel where his heat
had rested; it remained immovable.
paused for moment and tried to re.
call the exact position the man had oc'
cupied, then it flashed over me all of {
sudden, and pressing down with my
foot, at the place weere he had knelt a
the same time pressing On the upper
part of the panel, my efforts were re.
warded by seeing the panel slide slowly
back. A dark cavity yawned before us
By the Pickering light of the candle we
see that flight of stone steps led dowr
from the entrance, but we were unable
to see where they ended. Beatrice drew
back from the opening with a little
shudder.
"Let's go and call your father" she
said, but I was too eager to explore fur
ther, and at last induced her to come
with me.
| descended, holding the candle above
my head, so that its faint light fell on
the steps before me, and Beatrice fol-
two or three steps behind. Down, down,
down we went. 1t seemed as if we were
descending a never ending stairway.
1 had counted forty-three steps before
we reached the bottom. | felt my cour-
age suddenly oozing out of my finger
| tips but was ashamed to confess my
cowardice and turn back, so we pressed
| forward down narrow rock, turned a
corner, and, horror of horrors! there
stood upright before us, propped against
the wall at the end of the corridor, too
plainly revealed In all its horrors by the
faint light from the candle, a grinning
skeleton, and from its bones hung the
tattered remnants of a Confederate uni
form. With shrill scream we turned
and fled back up the steps, but to our
terror on reaching the head of the stairs
we found the panel closed, and cur ut
most efforts failed to move it.
| At last utterly exhausted by what ap-
peared to be vain efforts to move the
panel, or to make ourselves heard by
loudly calling. We gave up in despair
and sat down on the topmost step. I
bitterly upbraided my self for not taking
Beatrice's advice as to calling father
before we descended the steps, but there
was no use in "crying over split milk, +"
so tried to concentrate my thoughts on
plan of escape from a predicament
truly APPALLING.
| We reckoned that it must then be
about five O'Clock and for the next two
hours we alternated in trying to batter
| down the panel, and resting deiectedly
between whiles on the stop step.
At last told Beatrice that intended
6descending to the corridor in search of
some weapon to batter down the panel,
although my hopes OF flnding anything
were faint indeed. Beatrice demurred,
but I insisted that unless We found
something, with which we could force
the panel back or break through it our
chances were about the same as those o1
the Union spy.
The library was situated in the west
wing of "La Grange" which used to be
the main entrance during my grand