LAND & WATER 
21 
Patrice's father must have prepared his weapons. Coralie's 
mother must have folded her hands and prayed, fogether 
tTev had barricaded the door and together sounded the walls 
and^aken up the carpet. What an anguish was this, doubled 
"to dtpd'th^e ho^roTSte idea, they tunned the pages of 
the book's works of faction and others, which the- P-ent 
had read. On certain pages, at the ^.f , "^ ^, •'I'^fPSher 
volume, were lines constitutmg notes which Patrice s tattler 
and Coralie's mother used to write each other. 
" Darling Patrice, — , ,mc.fprfiav 
" I ran in this morning to recreate our life of YfffJ 
and to dream of our life this afternoon. As you will arrive 
before me, you will read these lines. You will read that I 
love you . . ." 
And, in another book: 
" My Own Cora'Lie, — . ... ,„ 
" You have this minute gone, I shall not see you until to- 
morrow and I do not want to leave this haven where our 
love has tasted such delights without ' once more teUmg . 
you ..." 
They looked through most of the books in this way, findmg 
however, instead of the clues for which they hoped, nothing 
but expressions of love and affection. And they spent more 
than two hours waiting and dreading what might happen. 
Words were powerless to comfort them. If the/ were 
not to die of hunger, then the enemy must have contrived 
another form of torture. Their inability to do anythmg kept 
them on the rack. Patrice began his investigations again. 
A curious accident turned them in a new direction On 
opening one of the books through which they had not yet 
l<k)ked a book published in 1895, Patrice saw two pages 
turned down together. He separated them and read a 
letter addressed to him by his father : 
" Patrice, My Dear Son, .. 
" If ever chance places this note before your eyes, it will 
prove that I have met with a violent death which has pre- 
vented my dostroving it. In that case, Patrice look for 
the truth concerning my death on the wall of the stud o 
between the two windows. I shaU perhaps have time to 
write it down." , , ^- 1 i.i. 
The two victims had therefore at that time foreseen the 
tragic fate in store for them ; and Patrice's father and Coralie s 
mother knew the danger which they ran m coming to the 
lodge. It remained to be seen whether Patnce s father 
had been able to carry out his intention. 
Between the two windows, as all around the room, vras a 
wainscoting of varnished wood, topped at a height of six 
feet by a cornice. Above the cornice was the plain plastered 
waU. Patrice and Coralie had already observed, without 
paving particular attention to it, that the wainscoting seemed 
to have been renewed in this part, because the varnish of the 
boards did not have the same uniform colour. Using one ot 
the iron dogs as a chisel, Patrice broke down the cornice 
and lifted the first board. It broke easily. Under this plank 
on the plaster of the wall, were hues of writing. ^ 
" It's the same method," he said, " as that which old bimeon 
has since employed. First write on the walls, then cover it 
up with wood or plaster." 
He broke off the top of the other boards and in this way 
brought several complete lines into view, hurried hues, 
written in pencil and slightly worn by time. Patnce 
deciphered them with the greatest emotion. His father 
had written them at a moment when death was stalking at 
hand A few hours later, he had ceased to live. They were 
the evidence of his death agony and perhaps too an im- 
precation against the enemy who was kiUing him and the 
woman he loved. 
Patrice read, in an undertone : ,, , 
" I am writing this in order that the scoundrels plot 
may not be achieved to the end and in order to ensure his 
punishment. Coralie and I are no doubt going to pensh 
but at least we shaU not die without revealing the cause of 
our death. ,^ , 
" A few days ago. he said to Coralie. You spurn my love, 
yo« load me with your hatred. So be it. But I shall kill 
you both, your lover and you. in such a manner that I can 
never be accused of the death, which wiU look Uke suicide. 
Everything is ready. Beware. Coralie.' 
" Everything was. in fact, ready. He did not know me, 
but he must have known that Coralie used to meet somebody 
here daily ; and it was in this lodge that he prepared our 
tomb. 
" What manner of death ours will be we do not know. 
Lack of food, no doubt. It is four hours since we were im- 
prisoned The door closed upon us. a heavy door which he 
must have placed there last night. All the other openings, 
doors and windows alike, are stopped up with blocks of stone 
January 25, 1917 
laid and cemented since our last meeting. Escape is im 
possible. What is to become of us ? " 
The uncovered portion stopped here. Patrice said : 
" You see, Coralie, they went through the same horrors 
as ourselves. They too dreaded starvation. They too passed 
through long hours of waiting, when inaction is so painful ; 
and it was more or less to distract their thoughts that they 
wrote those hnes." 
He went on, after examining the spot : , ^u ^ *u 
" They counted, most likely, on what happened, that the 
man who was killing them would not read this docuinent. 
Look, one long curtain was hung over these two windows 
and the wall between them, one curtain, as is proved by the 
single rod covering the whole distance. After our parents 
death, no one thought of drawing it ; and the truth remained 
concealed until the day when Simeon discovered it and, by 
wav of precaution, hid it again under a wooden panel and 
hung up two curtains in the place of one. In this way, every- 
thing seemed normal." . 
Patrice set to work again. A few more lines made their 
appearance^ .^^^^ the only one to suffer, the on y one to die. 
But the horror of it al is that 1 am dragging mv dear Corahe 
with me. She fainted and is lying down now, prostrated 
by the fears which she tries so hard to overcome. My poor 
darting I I seem aheady to see the pallor of death on her 
sweet face. Forgive me, dearest, forgive me ! 
Patrice and Coralie exchanged glances. Here were the 
same sentiments which they themselves felt, the same scruples, 
the same delicacy, the same effacement of self in the presence 
of the other's grief. ' , 
" He loved your mother." Patrice murmured, as I love 
you I also am not afraid of death. I have faced it too 
often, with a smile ! l>at you, Coralie, you for whose sake I 
would undergo any sort of torture. . . . ! 
He began to walk up and down, once more yielding to his 
^^1 shaU save you, Coralie, I swear it. And what a delight 
it will then be to take our revenge ! He shall have the same 
fate which he was devising for us. 
He tore down more pieces of boarding, m the hope of learn- 
ing something that might be useful to him, since the struggle 
was being renewed under exactly similar conditions. But 
the sentences that followed, like those which Patrice had just 
uttered, were oaths Of *a«^eance : k - tK« 
" Coralie, he shaU be punished, if not by us, then by the 
hand of God. No, his infernal scheme wiM not succeed. 
No it will never be beUeved that we had recourse to suicide 
to 'relieve ourselves of an existence that was built up of 
happiness and joy. No, his crime will be known. Hour _by 
hour I shall here set down the undeniable proofs. . . . 
" Words words ! " cried Patrice, in a tone of exasperation. 
" Words of vengeance and sorrow, but never a fact to guide > 
us Father, will you tell us nothing to save your Cora le s 
dauehter ' If your Coralie succumbed, let mine escape the 
disaster, thanks to your aid, father ! Help me! Counsel me! 
But the father answered the son with nothing but more 
words of chaUenge and despair : 
" Who can rescue us ? We are walled up m this totnb, 
buried alive and condemned to torture without being able 
to defend ourselves. My revolver hes ther.', upon the table. 
What is the use of it ? The enemy does not attack us He has 
time on his side, unrelenting time which kills of its own 
strength, by the mere fact that it is time. Who can rescue 
us ? Who wiU save my darUng CoraUe ? " 
The position was terrible; and they felt all its tragic 
horror It seemed to them as though they were already dead 
once they were enduring the same trial endured by others and 
enduring it under the same conditions. There was nothing 
to enable them to escape any of the phases through which the 
other two. his father and her mother, had passed. The 
similarity be ween their own and their pa-ents fate was so 
striking that they seemed to be suffering two deaths ; and 
. the second agony was now commencing. , , - . 
CoraUe gave way and began to cry. Moved by Tier tears, 
Patrice attacked the wainscoting with new fury but its 
boards, strengthened by cross-laths, resisted his efforts : 
At last he read : . • ^i. i. 
" What is happening ? We had an impression that some- 
one was walking outside, in the garden^ Yes. when we put 
our ears fo the stone wall built in the embrasure of the window 
we thought we heard footsteps. Is it possible ? Oh. if it 
onlywerll It would mean the struggle, at last. Any hmg 
rather than the maddening silence and endless uncertainty ! 
"That's it' . ■ That's it! . . • The sound is 
becoming more distinct. . . -.Itf^ different sound like 
that which you make when you dig the ground with a pick^ 
axe. Some one is digging the ground, not in front of the 
house, but on the right, near the kitchen. . . • 
{To be continued) 
