The Son of Clemenceau

w that its predestination toward thirst was due to its being the site of an ancient rock-salt mine. In other cities, subterraneans were melodramatic; here, a labyrinth under the surface

by night or the foot-passengers by day, whom he would hear overhead, and be released from t

ng that he spied. An odor of sausages, cheese and coarse tobacco was here and there strong, and he correctly divined that at these points, fugitives, probably from the same enemy as

drawing tools and lecture notes. In a few hours the change was great. The quiet student, with no aspirations but the completion of his wandering-year in Italian picture-galleries, had become a fugitive from justice, and on the hands, groping in a lugubrious earthen alley, were the stain

for while at any point of divergence there were marks in the earth, where traces of saline flows still glistened, and even stones and bits of stick place

n than fables teach. They scuttled off in front of him, it is true, but he began to think that they followed him when he went by. One ray of comfort came in the two beliefs that his flashing matches frightened them, a

tock of fuses ran out, while with the last flash he feared that he saw a lar

unable to take a step with any certainty how it would end. Fortunately, he had strayed back into an often-traveled path, and while the scamper of the rats died away at the close of his frantic race, he heard a sound

the guide-books were to be credited, and, while he had no clear idea of the direction he had rambled, he might have reached the town of twenty thousand dead. The idea was gruesome of having

a termination just when he looked forward with joy to a grey light dimly indicating some aperture on the other side of which

oll; the silence was once more heavy. But the pangs of hung

he recalled the feeble light. The rats' compact column had figured in his dreams, and while they were led by the fair waltz-singer and da

dicated the orifice. It was a welcome draft, for it differed in many features from the noisome,

-circular at the top, set in massive masonry of some building, in the foundation of wh

gave him a giant's strength to escape the fancied, grisly pursuers, and he moved

raged. His weakness could be accounted for, as his wandering had lasted long; the syncope could not

. All was hushed; it was difficult to imagine a phantom where neglect seemed to rule. It was not in this olden part that descendants of the departed flocked on All Saints' Day to decorate the mausoleums with ever

de his way, deviating as the tombs compelled, toward the entrance. To his surprise, all was still there, and though a lamp burned in the lit

d not be delicate about taking a nip of spirits or a hunch of bread. Both were in a cupboard in the little domicile, supplied with

s a row of brazen knobs, there was a formal injunction for the gatewarder never to go a

he other end of the wires from those bells; the custom was to attach them to the dead so that, if their slumbers were not that k

ng at the beer-house or chattering with a sweetheart, the bell might ring unheeded, and the unhappy creature, falling with the la

arnessed to do man service in his utmost extremity; science had perfected its instruments, but one link in the chain was fallible man.

oaf and drank from the bottle out of which the faithless turnkey hob

the care of heaven alone the unknown wretch who would have summoned his brother-Christians most uselessly? The res

row rang clearly if not very loudly. It sounded in his ear like the last trump. Could he doubt that this appeal

repeat to him the alarm? Not much time would be lost, for the gong still vi

did not waver any longer. On the threshold of safety, he turned straight back into the jaws of destruction. He had no

es were not fine enough to hear the faint sound. But there was no delusion; t

, to reach the building, out of the cellars of which he had so gladly climbed

with iron banding the oak, it was not made for the hand of the dying to move it, but Claudius dragged it open with viole

n and a boy, nude save a waistcloth; over their heads-sluggishly swayed by the air the new-comer had carelessly admitted-their clothes were hung like shapeless shadows. They had been dredged up in the Isar's mud,

d rung t

dge-basket of the steam-dredge; not a spark of life was left there,

aster statue. Cold had blanched him; but a faint steam arose from his armpits, in the sepulchral light of a gr

ite of the maltreated face, he recognized his combatant in the duel with canes; it

and his daughter being published, and had she suggested the stripping which caused the

st from the door left open, and a

he would never recover strength to ring the death-bell

utter had no clothes, but a torn and shapeless garment dangled over his head; it was the old cloak of th

en wrapped about him. With a surprising spell of strength, Claudius lifted him

its sliding grate by mechanism worked within his little house.

said. "I will go fetch the police surgeon

l into the large armchair and, taking advantage of the warder's consternation at seeing the dead-like body sit

s to his feet, for he feared that police and patrol would hurry to the cemetery fr