d this table, Samuel perceived a piece of white vellum,
on which were inscribed these words: "My testament is to be opened in
this saloon. The other apartments are to remain closed, until after the
reading of my last will--M. De R."

"Yes," said the Jew, as he perused with emotion these lines traced so
long ago; "this is the same recommendation as that which I received from
my father; for it would seem that the other apartments of this house are
filled with objects, on which M. de Rennepont set a high value, not for
their intrinsic worth, but because of their origin. The Hall of Mourning
must be a strange and mysterious chamber. Well," added Samuel, as he
drew from his pocket a register bound in black shagreen, with a brass
lock, from which he drew the key, after placing it upon the table, "here
is the statement of the property in hand, which I have been ordered to
bring hither, before the arrival of the heirs."

The deepest silence reigned in the room, at the moment when Samuel
placed the register on the table. Suddenly a simple and yet most
startling occurrence roused him from his reverie. In the next apartment
was heard the clear, silvery tone of a clock, striking slowly ten. And
the hour was ten! Samuel had too much sense to believe in perpetual
motion, or in the possibility of constructing a clock to go far one
hundred and fifty years. He asked himself, therefore, with surprise and
alarm, how this clock could still be going, and how it could mark so
exactly the hour of the day. Urged with restless curiosity, the old man
was about to enter the room; but recollecting the recommendation of his
father, which had now been confirmed by the few lines he had just read
from De Rennepont's pen, he stopped at the door, and listened with
extreme attention.

He heard nothing--absolutely nothing, but the last dying vibration of
the clock. After having long reflected upon this strange fact, Samuel,
comparing it with the no less extraordinary circumstance of the light
perceived that morning through the apertures in the belvedere, concluded
that there must be some connection between these two incidents. If
the old man could not penetrate the true cause of these extraordinary
appearances, he at least explained them to himself, by remembering the
subterraneous communications, which, according to tradition, were said
to exist between the cellars of this house and distant places; and he
conjectured that unknown and mysterious persona