afar along the flights of stone stairs, and echoed dismally from time to time in the vast space of the towers. Hence, it became easy to him to compute the number of his fellow-sufferers, a fresh source of sorrowful reflection. Sometimes these things filled his mind with strange anxieties. Listening hourly to these noises, and devising such interpretations as he could, he became convinced that the fellow-captive in the chamber below his own died during his imprisonment; but under what circumstances he could not conjecture.
It happened one morning, about two o'clock, that he heard a great noise upon the staircase, as from a number of persons ascending the stairs in a tumultuous manner. They seemed to advance no further than the chamber below, and to be there engaged in much bustle and dispute, in the midst of which the poor prisoner could hear very distinctly repeated struggles and groans. Three days after, at about the same late hour, he heard, apparently at the same spot, a noise less violent, and he thought he could distinguish the setting down and shutting of a coffin. In this way Linguet passed his time, until a serious illness overtook him, during which he vomited blood, and became so weak that he regarded his end as approaching. During this time, he remained in ignorance of all that passed, whether of a public or private nature, outside his prison walls. His oppressors told him, with a sneer, that it was unnecessary for him to concern himself about what passed in the world, because he was there supposed to be dead.
After nearly two years spent in this way, the authorities, from some unexplained caprice, determined to set Linguet at liberty, delivering to him an order banishing
