cell, but there the old exile,
dead, with his eyes staring wide and glassy.

He had died alone, without a friendly hand to close his eyes with a
prayer.

In truth, his death at any moment was not unexpected by Barnwell, but
coming as it did at the very moment of Kanoffskie's dream, made it seem
more strange and horrible.

Indeed, there seemed to be something horribly supernatural about it.

He stood for a moment gazing upon the rigid features of the poor old
man, hardly daring to return and tell Kanoffskie of his death.

"But it serves him right," he thought; and covering the dead man's face
with a blanket, he returned to the surgeon's office.

"Well?" he asked, with quick anxiety.

"The old man is dead, sir."

"Dead--dead, say you?" shrieked Kanoffskie, springing to his feet,
trembling and pale.

"Yes, sir, he is dead."

"How--how long since, do you think?" he asked, in a choked voice.

"Probably fifteen or twenty minutes; he is scarcely cold yet."

"Heavens!" he exclaimed, and sank back in his chair.

"It might have been expected, sir."

"Yes, but in connection with my dream! Barnwell, my dream! It must have
come simultaneously with it!" and the wretched man seemed scarcely able
to sit in his chair, so greatly did he tremble, while great beads of
perspiration stood out upon his forehead.

Barnwell hastened to set a glass of wine before him, which he
tremblingly bore to his mouth and swallowed at a gulp.

"More!" he gasped, and Barnwell poured him out another.

"That will revive you, sir, I hope."

But the surgeon made no reply. He sat there glaring at vacancy for fully
five minutes, and neither of them spoke a word.

Finally he pointed to the empty glass, and again Barnwell filled it with
brandy, which he drank.

He was evidently trying to nerve himself up.

"What a strange coincidence, Barnwell."

"Very strange, indeed, sir; but do not let it weigh too heavily on your
mind, I beg of you. Regard it as simply a strange coincidence, nothing
more."

"Oh, Barnwell, it must be something more! I have ill-treated that man,
and even his death may be laid to my door and I have abused others even
to death--those whose faces I saw in that deep-down, horrid hole--they
who welcomed me with such fiendish and exultant shouts," said he, with
his head bowed low.

There could be no doubt but that he spoke the truth, and this made it
seem all the more strange. He had always been a tyrant in his office,
an