The Argosy — page 290: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

Sandstone Torr. 269 you can hear me speak now. ‘Help! help! _— Radcliffe !’ they said. And I swear the voice was Frank’s own.’ “Tt ever I heard the like of this!” ejaculated Duffham. “Tt is really not—not to be credited.” “The sound of the cries comes out on the air through the openings in the tower,” ran on Tod, in excitement. ‘Oh, he is there, poor fellow, safe enough. And to think what long months he has been kept there, Stephen’s prisoner! ‘Twelve. ‘Twelve, as I’m alive.— Now, look you here, Duffham ! you are staring like an unbeliever.” “It’s not altogether that—that I don’t believe,” said Duffham, whose wide-open eyes were staring considerably. ‘‘I am thinking what is to be done about it—how to set the question at rest.” Tod left the door unguarded and flung himself into the other chair. He went over the whole narrative quietly: how Mrs. Frank Rad- cliffe—who had been listening to the cries for a week past—had first put him into a-puzzle, how he had then heard the words and the voice, and how the true explanation came flashing into his mind later. With every sentence, Duffham grew more convinced, and at last he believed it as much as we did. «¢ And now how is he to be got out?” concluded Tod. Holding a council together, we decided that the first step must be to get a magistrate’s order to search the Torr. That involved the disclosure of the facts to the magistrate—whosoever he might be. Mr. Brandon was pitched upon: Duffham proposed the Squire at first ; but, as Tod pointed out, the Squire would be sure to go to work in some hot and headlong manner, and perhaps ruin all. Let Stephen Radcliffe get only half an inkling of what was up, and he might con- trive to convey Frank off to the ends of the earth. All three of us started at once, Duffham leaving his waticnte for that One morning to doctor themselves, and found Mr. Brandon at break- fast. He had been distracted with face-ache all night he said, which caused him to rise.late. The snow-white table-cloth was set off with flowers and plate, but the fare was not luxurious. The silver jug held plenty of new milk, the silver tea-pot a modicum of the weakest of tea, the silver rack the dryest of dry toast. A boiled egg and the butter dish remained untouched. One of the windows was thrown up wide to the summer air, and to the scent from the clustering flower beds and the hum of the bees dipping over them to sip their sweets. Breaking off little bits of toast, and eating them slowly, Mr. Brandon listened to the tale. He did not take itin. That was check the first. And he would not grant a warrant to search the Torr. That was check the second. | “Stephen Radcliffe is bad enough in the ways of being sullen and miserly,” said he. ‘‘ But as to daring such a thing as this, I don’t think CoOnniclooolkKks (S©)