Eveline Mandeville

by Alvin Addison

With this the villains parted, Bill going out of the passage, and Dick into the cave.

To all this Eveline was an absorbed, but to them unknown, listener. How the great hope of the morning died in her bosom, as the fearful truth was revealed to her, that another snare was laid to entangle her feet—that her newly found friends were but enemies in disguise. Instead of liberators, who would restore her to home and friends, they were vile miscreants, destining her to a fate no better than that which now surrounded her, and removed still further from the possibility of succor. For a little time she clung to the hope that Dick would hold out in her behalf; but this last prop was taken away, and she felt that there was no help from any quarter, and that self-dependence was her only safeguard.

Ah, how desolate was her heart in that hour! How like a lone reed in the pelting tempest did she feel herself to be! Surrounded by enemies on all hands, a prisoner in a dungeon, with no friendly arm to lean upon, no kind voice of sympathy to encourage and strengthen her, she felt almost like giving over the struggle, and lying down to die where she stood.

But this feeling of despondency was of short duration. Arousing to a lively sense of her situation, this apathy was thrown off, and the native energy of purpose which she had exhibited so strikingly on former occasions, quickened her spirit and restored vigor to her frame. Immediately she began to collect her thoughts, and cast about to see if there was no way of escape from this new danger. At first she thought of making a confidant of Duffel, and throwing herself upon his generosity; but remembering all that he had done, she felt that this would be vain, so far as she was concerned, while it might save him from merited exposure and punishment; and so she at once abandoned the idea.

In the midst of perplexity and doubt, the thought struck her with the vividness of a flash of intelligence, that the passage she was in might communicate with the outer world! The very suggestion caused her to heave a sigh of relief. What so probable as this supposition? At any rate she had something to do, a definite object to call forth her energies; and this was no small matter, in the state of mind under which she was laboring at that hour.

Raising her lamp to a level with her face, she passed the light close to the wall, scrutinizing every spot, to see if there was no sign indicative of another spring-closed door. But no brilliant fragment of stalactite appeared as a reward for her search, and she turned away with a feeling of disappointment, and heaviness at her heart. As she did so, for the first time her eye fell upon a polished surface, much resembling the face of a mirror, upon the opposite wall. Looking more attentively, she discovered, as it were, trees, shrubs, a running stream of water, and all the accompaniments of a finished landscape painting. Fearful as was her situation, she could not help pausing to admire the beauty, the naturalness, the perfection of the scene. She had never beheld any thing half so vivid, so truthful, from the pencil of the artist. It actually seemed as if water was running over its gravelly bed, as if the bushes moved in the breeze; in a word, the whole looked far more like a reality than a cold painting. As she was gazing in admiration upon this singular appearance, a bird actually flew over the scene! She could hardly believe her senses; but soon another one followed, and she knew there was no deception in her eyes this time.

Philosophy was not universally taught in those days, as it is now, and Eveline did not know how to solve this mystery as well as many a school girl could do at the present day; but she had read of the tricks of the magicians of Egypt and India, and what seeming wonders they could show in their magic mirrors; and she came to the conclusion that the robbers of the cave had learned the same art, and that before her was one of the soothsayers' glasses.

But what was the design had in view in placing it in that obscure and unfrequented place? As this query suggested itself to her mind, a man passed along on the bank of the stream! and in a few minutes another in the opposite direction; and in the last one she recognized one of her captors! She at once comprehended the design of the apparatus; it was to reveal what was passing without to the eye of the individual within, who had doubtless adopted this method of informing himself of passing external events, as a means of personal safety in case of need. It was, she supposed, a device of the captain of the thieves, to save himself, either from the ministers of the law or from the violence of those under him, in case of revolt.

It is not our design to enter into an elaborate description of this piece of mechanism, as every student of philosophy, who is well acquainted with the reflection and refraction of rays of light, will understand how an ingenious contrivance produced the results spoken of. The same principle enters into the arrangement of the camera obscura. There was an aperture very artfully cut through the wall, and so guarded on the outside as to escape notice; and in this a tube was placed with a set of happily contrived fixtures, by the aid of which the scene without was accurately depicted on the polished surface within. It was the work of the captain, as Eveline supposed.

As this contrivance was evidently intended to give information of danger from without, it must certainly be connected in some manner with the means of escape; else what was it worth? Such was the conclusion to which Eveline arrived, as she philosophized upon the matter. And she reflected further, what other method of escape was there, save a secret medium of communication with the outer world? None at all, except it be a quiet waiting within the passage she now herself occupied, which she could not bring herself to believe was the case; so she renewed her search for the door of egress.