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Show BY PATH AND TRAIL. 75 distinctly, faint and as if afar, yet perfectly clear. It sounded, too, like Ms parish bell. Antonio sprang out of his shaft and stood listening. The sound confused him and he could not tell exactly from what direction it came. It seemed now north, now south, and now somewhere above him, but it continued to ring, reminding him it was time for mass. Then the bell ceased to ring; ah! thought the lone man, " the priest is at the altar and mass has begun. ' ' The excitement of the mine had passed away from him as fever from a sick man. A sort of inertia crept over him and he dropped his shovel and idled for the rest of the day, thinking about the bell. As yet he was not afraid, but, that night, seated before his lonely cabin, he heard the slow, rhythmic sound of the bell once again; he felt an icy creeping in his scalp and turned sick with dread. He was afraid of the awful solitude and afraid to be alone with the mysterious sound. He knew it could be no bell, knew that it must be an hallucination, yet be fore it stopped, he went nearly mad. The next time he heard it was in the afternoon of the following day. He stared about him and the old sense of familiarity returned ten- fold. The granite gorge seemed teeming with some horrible secret or a spectre was soon to appear and speak to him. He feared to look around him lest the awful thing would draw near. And now the bell begins to toll for the dead, and Antonio hears a voice from the air saying, " She is dead, she is dead. " " Ah, Cara Mia, ' ' spoke the lone man, ' ' my heart is dead within me, but I must go to your funeral and see you laid to rest, and I'll soon be with you." Still the bell kept tolling. Before it ceased, Antonio was flying out of the canyon, haggard, muttering to himself, wildly ges- |