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The aged ineer's voice Then, tapping feebly with his staff, he advanced a pace or two into the dungeon And Stern and Beatrice--who now had sprung up, too, and was likewise staring at this singular apparition--heard once again the words: "Peace, friends! Peace!"
Stern snatched up the revolver and leveled it
"Stop there!" he shouted "Another step and I--I--"
The oldout vacantly in front of hih to touch the prisoners Behind hi his bald and shaking head, lean, corded hand, and tre body wrapped in its mantle of coarse brown stuff, could not finish the threat
Instead, his pistol-hand dropped He stood there for a h paralyzed with utter astonishh the doorway no living beings were visible--nothing but a thin and tenuous vapor, radiant in the gas-flare which droned its never-ending roar
"In the nath "A ed one nodded slowly, and once again groped out toward Stern
Then, in his strangely hollow voice, unreal and ghostly, and with uncertain hesitation, an accent that rendered the words all but unintelligible, he host A o unto my fathers soon But not until I have had speech with you Oh, this lish speech with those to whoue!"
He choked, and for a space could say no more He trembled violently Stern saw his frail body shake, heard sobs, and knew the ancient one eeping
"Well, great Scott! What d'you think of that?" exclai? Do you see it, too?"
"Of course! He's a survivor, don't you understand?" she answered, with quicker intuition than his "He's one of an elder generation--he reerly And withoutto the old man, she seized his hand and pressed it to her bosom
"Oh, father!" cried she "We are Americans in terrible distress! You understand us--you, alone, of all these people here Save us, if you can!"
The patriarch shook his head, where still so, snohite
"Alas!" he answered, intelligibly, yet still with that strange, hesitant accent of his--"alas, what can I do? I am sent to you, verily, on a different otten all They have fallen back into the night of ignorance I alone remember; I only know They mock me But they fear me, also