The Daily Ardmoreite. [volume] (Ardmore, Okla.) 1893-current, 1911-03-19


it to be there
Slowly he made his way forward,
still leading her by the hand until
his foot touched the edge of step.
Careful, now," he warned, and drew
her down with him. But score OF
treads below they came to a land
ing and there was another heavy
clang behind them.
Another iron panel Of the thick
ness of the first" he explained in
quiet pride, land it has closed off the
stairway from the world until we
shall ourselves choose to raise the
barrier"
But now Sophia drew back with
a sharp gasp.
"Oh, Alexander, by our love let me
go back" she cried. do not take
me with YOU"
NO. he replied gravely, that would
be but to doom you to death, for If
they do not find me here upon the
twenty-fifth, either noble or base-born
would wreak their vengeance upon
you, my beloved"
He strove to draw her gently on
ward. She caught her hand sharply
away from him.
But / cannot-I must not-I will
not go!"
You are nervous, my Sophia" he
said gently, and once more he grasp
ed her hand.
But now, resisting him, she became
vehement, and the more he urged the
more wild she became in her deter
mination that she would not accom-
pany him, until at last she raved
incoherently, and when, trying to
soothe her, he caught her in his
arms, she suddenly tainted within
them.
Pityingly he picked her up and
carried her on through the darkness,
down one flight of steps after an
other and then through long narrow
tunnel; and ever as ne went he re.
leased behind him impregnable mass
es of iron and stone that would give
even an army pause for many days,
until finally the passage opened into
a small, iron-walled chamber with.
out other opening of any sort; and
here the last great door sealed itself
behind them.
Feeling in the darkness for couch
at the farther side of the apartment
lhe laid his burden upon it, then turn
ing a button at the head of the
couch, mellow lights, fed from a
huge storage-battery, sprang out of
the Stygian blackness, whereupon he
bent himself to the task of restoring
Sophia to that sentence which hys-
terra had driven from her.
Presently she opened her eyes, and
finding his face beut close over her,
she clasped her arms about his neck
and pressed him cheek to cheek as
if she could never let him CO. but
by and by she became calmer, look
ing about her, however, with eyes
in which there still fingered some
great terror. Upon the floor We're
soft rugs; upon the walls were rich
tapestries; beside the couch there
were comfortable chairs and a table;
in one corner was a glass-closet dis
playing a goodly array of dishes and
table-linen; in another there was a
that might outlast a month, if need
be.
The secret of the Alexanders! "
said the tsar with again a ring of
pride in his voice. This is their ac-
cumulated handiwork. With their own
toll was every particle Of this cham
Der and its passage dug and wrought
and furnished, and each Alexander
has added his gift of labor and of
ingenuity to it's completion. 1t is
secret that has been whispered from
father to son, and not one living
soul but the heir to the throne him
self has been told of it in all these
ten generations. My part has been
this pleasant light that floods upon
us, this cooking-cabinet that, fed
from the same battery, makes no
smoke nor vitiates any air, and the
two concealed devices that renew
oxygen and absorb the carbonic acid