ecret of the bedstead. There appeared some reason to doubt whether the
inferior persons attached to the house knew anything of the suffocating
machinery; and they received the benefit of that doubt, by being treated
simply as thieves and vagabonds. As for the Old Soldier and his two head
myrmidons, they went to the galleys; the woman who had drugged my coffee
was imprisoned for I forget how many years; the regular attendants at
the gambling-house were considered "suspicious," and placed under
"surveillance"; and I became, for one whole week (which is a long time),
the head "lion" in Parisian society. My adventure was dramatized by
three illustrious play-makers, but never saw theatrical daylight; for
the censorship forbade the introduction on the stage of a correct copy
of the gambling-house bedstead.

One good result was produced by my adventure, which any censorship must
have approved: it cured me of ever again trying "Rouge et Noir" as an
amusement. The sight of a green cloth, with packs of cards and heaps of
money on it, will henceforth be forever associated in my mind with the
sight of a bed canopy descending to suffocate me in the silence and
darkness of the night.

THE TORTURE BY HOPE

VILLIERS DE L'ISLE ADAM

Many years ago, as evening was closing in, the venerable Pedro Arbuez
d'Espila, sixth prior of the Dominicans of Segovia, and third Grand
Inquisitor of Spain, followed by a _fra redemptor_, and preceded by two
familiars of the Holy Office, the latter carrying lanterns, made their
way to a subterranean dungeon. The bolt of a massive door creaked, and
they entered a mephitic _in-pace_, where the dim light revealed between
rings fastened to the wall a blood-stained rack, a brazier, and a jug.
On a pile of straw, loaded with fetters and his neck encircled by an
iron carcan, sat a haggard man, of uncertain age, clothed in rags.

This prisoner was no other than Rabbi Aser Abarbanel, a Jew of Arragon,
who--accused of usury and pitiless scorn for the poor--had been daily
subjected to torture for more than a year. Yet "his blindness was as
dense as his hide," and he had refused to abjure his faith.

Proud of a filiation dating back thousands of years, proud of his
ancestors--for all Jews worthy of the name are vain of their blood--he
descended Talmudically from Othoniel and consequently from Ipsiboa, the
wife of the last judge of Israel, a circumstance which had sustained his
courage amid incessant tort