My poor little mother! I thought of her picture--it hung in my library at home; the picture of a young, smiling, dark-haired beauty, whose delicate tint was as that of a peach ripening in the summer sun.

All that loveliness had decayed into--what?
I shuddered involuntarily--then I knelt humbly before those two sad hollows in the cold stone, and implored the blessing of the dead and gone beloved ones to whom, while they lived, my welfare had been dear.
While I occupied this kneeling position the flame of my torch fell directly on some small object that glittered with remarkable luster.

I went to examine it; it was a jeweled pendant composed of one large pear-shaped pearl, set round with fine rose brilliants! Surprised at this discovery, I looked about to see where such a valuable gem could possible have come from I then noticed an unusually large coffin lying sideways on the ground; it appeared as if it had fallen suddenly and with force, for a number of loose stones and mortar were sprinkled near it.

Holding the light close to the ground, I observed that a niche exactly below the one in which _I_ had been laid was empty, and that a considerable portion of the wall there was broken away.

I then remembered that when I had sprung so desperately out of my narrow box I had heard something fall with a crash beside me, This was the thing, then--this long coffin, big enough to contain a man seven feet high and broad in proportion.