story was told to me, to the setting of the mountains, to the contrast
between the joy of the sunlight and the flowers and this black,
murderous hole, but my heart was wrung, all my nerves unstrung by this
tale which, perhaps, may not appear so terribly harrowing to you as you
read it in your room without having the scene of the tragedy before your
eyes.

It was one spring in recent years. Two little boys frequently came to
play on the edge of this cistern while their tutor lay under a tree
reading a book. One warm afternoon a piercing cry awoke the tutor who
was dozing and the sound of splashing caused by something falling
into the water made him jump to his feet abruptly. The younger of the
children, eight years of age, was shouting, as he stood beside the
reservoir, the surface of which was stirred and eddying at the spot
where the older boy had fallen in as he ran along the stone coping.

Distracted, without waiting or stopping to think what was best to do,
the tutor jumped into the black water and did not rise again, having
struck his head at the bottom of the cistern.

At the same moment the young boy who had risen to the surface was waving
his stretched-out arms toward his brother. The little fellow on land lay
down full length, while the other tried to swim, to approach the wall,
and presently the four little hands clasped each other, tightened in
each other's grasp, contracted as though they were fastened together.
They both felt the intense joy of an escape from death, a shudder at the
danger past.

The older boy tried to climb up to the edge, but could not manage it,
as the wall was perpendicular, and his brother, who was too weak, was
sliding slowly towards the hole.

Then they remained motionless, filled anew with terror. And they waited.

The little fellow squeezed his brother's hands with all his might and
wept from nervousness as he repeated: "I cannot drag you out, I cannot
drag you out." And all at once he began to shout, "Help! Help!" But his
light voice scarcely penetrated beyond the dome of foliage above their
heads.

They remained thus a long time, hours and hours, facing each other,
these two children, with one thought, one anguish of heart and the
horrible dread that one of them, exhausted, might let go the hands of
the other. And they kept on calling, but all in vain.

At length the older boy, who was shivering with cold, said to the little
one: "I cannot hold out any longer. I am going