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WERE LOST IN COMBS Two Young Travelers in Underground Deserte Thirty years aao I was a girl 18, spending my first Easter in Ro: with old family friends?Mr. a Mrs. Anderson and their only s< Maurice, a bright, jolly Cambric undergraduate, whose spirits, al< were in a much better state of rep. than his lungs. Mostly for his sake we had drift slowly down the Riviera and dawdl on in Rome, until now it was ab, lutely imperative that the next <3 should see us start for England. Maurice and I had determined visit the Catacombs of St. Calyxti but, with the usual dilatoriness youth we had postponed the trip i til the very last day of our stay. I Iing anxious to see some fine fresco that had recently been uncovered, decided, though it was getting h in the afternoon, to drive out to t Catacombs and see if we could p< suade a guide to take us down. On arriving at Porta San Sabas ano, we found that all the regul guides had gone home, but a hea^ 1, -disagreeable-looking man, sitting a drinking outside a small tavern, last consented to take us through we would wait while he finished 1 >'>. supper. We agreed that it would be darker inside the Catacombs at o'clock than it was at midday, so 1 ilj.r possessed our souls with what i tience we could muster while t . . surly looking ruffian ate and drat The tether of an undergraduat* h patience is proverbially short, a soon Maurice would allow the m no peace, but, by worrying in 1 broken Italian, at length cajoled h: Jr>- into leaving his meal unfinish< Arming eacn or us wun long piet of twisted candle and grumbling v der his breath, the guide led the w and we descended into the Cai k combs. All went fairly well for some tin and as we traversed passage aft passage and turned this way and thi in the tortuous windings of t vaults, our guide explained the ru frescoes adorning the roof and sid* But, alas! that was where t trouble began, for his English w; if possible, a shade more peculi -.V than Maurice's Italian, and, frc shouting questions and answers what each fondly believed to be t other's native tongue, they finally ? intensely irritated with the difficu' of understanding one another, spite of my earnest entreaties Maurice to be careful and not net lesslv annoy the man, he persisted ; v yelling at him, and at length with oath, our guide roughly told us stand still. A moment later he strc V down one of the numerous ti pfe" nels, which extended, as we kne for many miles beneath the earth, As long as the glimmer of his lig could be followed we ran after hi calling upon him to return, but pr entiy i caugnt my iuut uu a broken masonry and fell heavi dropping my precious piece of can* | in the fall. On recovering my senses I fou that Maurice had picked me out the mud and seated me on one ol the little shelves or recesses, abc a foot from the ground, which?c< turies ago?had been cut to rece the bodies of the early Christia The guide had vanished. By the dim light of Maurice's ta] I could see that he looked very wh and anxious, but a gloom of joy luminated the poor boy's face wi lie saw that I was regaining cons ousness. One of my earliest questions v as to whether he had found my p cious piece of candle, darkness such a place being the worst possi misfortune that could befall Luckily, he had discovered it af careful search, and, though it ^ much damaged, he had pinned it to the crown of his soft cap to insi its protection from further harm It was now nearly 7 o'clock, i we reckoned we had been in the C acombs rather over two hours. How we inwardly cursed our fc Vh, V in not having told any one at hotel of our intentions. Although by this time we had, doubt been missed, no one wo have the slightest idea in what dii tion to search for us, and there fla ed through our minds terri thoughts of the extent of the Cz />nmhs For manv scores of m the labyrinths extended beneath city, sometimes at a depth of 40 { 50 feet. What chance, therefi had we of making our escape guided? The passage we were sitting was very narrow?barely two 1 across, in fact and very damp?so decided to move on until we cam< one of the larger chapels, fi % O THE CATAOF ST. CALYXTUS > Have Terrible Experience Passage After Being d by Guide. of' wichh the minor alleys branch off. me j Presently we came upon quite a ,nd j large cubiculum, from which five Dn, | small passages radiated. There was lee ! a tinv niche here in which we placed w-1 is! our candle, and Maurice and I sat air down on a broken piece of marble that had, no doubt, been an altar in ed ; the early days of Christianity. ' I led | Hardly had we placed our treasso-! ured candle in safety and settled ourlay j selves than, to my horror, a loud ; whispering and rustling commenced, to j and before we could determine us, j whence it came a shadowy something of j swooped down and extinguished the in- j light! 5e_! With the darkness came utter si>es J lence,, and it was some seconds bewe; fore we could recover our courage lte j sufficiently to consult each other as he to this new terror. 3r~ At last Maurice whispered to me . that he had matches and that he would relight the candle. Hardly lar had the tiny flame flickered into life W, than once more that indefinite something rushed forward out of the at inky darkness, and again we were ! enveloped in darkness. lis i This time the extinguishing was j accompanied by a curious swashing 110 j sound. In my terror I grasped Mau5 I rice's arm with what, I am sure, j must have been a painful grip, and i )a~ | could hear him breathing hard in the he i velvety, impalpable blackness. Each I moment we expected bony fingers to s's | clasp us by the throat, or some other nd | horror to emerge and confront us. an! How long this tension continued I lis' do not know. It seemed like hours, im j but was probably only a few minutes' id. I duration. Then, far up above our ;es | heads the rustling recommenced, acm-! companied by shrill, bird-like chirpay ling! Oh, the relief to our strained :a-; senses! Simultaneously we gasped, "Bats!" and could have laughed at le, our terrors of the moment before. ;er> After this, as it was useless to atat, i tempt to light the candle, we sat very he; quietly for a long while in the darkde ness. Maurice had his case full of es. I cigarettes, and, by shielding the he | match very carefully in his cap, we as, were able to light one each, and I iar j felt grateful indeed that my educa>m; tion comprised the unlady-like acin complishment of smoking, he1 I think, after a while, we must ;ot | have fallen asleep, for it seemed a Ltyj very long time before Maurice spoke In again. He said he felt so thirsty that to j he must go back to the passage we id- had first been in and try to scoop up in j some of the water lying there. He an icnidho knew unite well which turning to! it was, and he would only be away a >de few minutes. He left me two matchin es and another cigarette, and I heard sw, him stumbling away over the broken ground. It seemed to me that several jht minutes elapsed, and still I heard no m, sound of his return, so I called him? es- softly at first, then louder, as my of panic grew more intense, ly, At a certain pitch of my shouting He it struck upon some sound-wave in the caverns, and immediately all the nd vast extent of the labyrinth took up of the cry. Every tunnel and passage I a echoed "Maurice! Maurice!" and the )ut name was repeated in every possible 3n- gamut of whisper and growl. The ive bats shuffled and stirred overhead, ns. i ghostly forms seemed to rise out of I the darkness, and at last my nerves 3er i gave way and I broke down, sobbing ite | myself into a state of semiunconsciil | ousness. ien | When I awoke again Maurice had jci-1 not returned, but I felt that it was I impossible to remain longer in this tTas | state of inaction, so, taking the taper re- with me, I felt my way very careiuny in around the wall until I came to the ble opening by which I fancied we had us. entered. ter When I had gone a little way down ras it I used one of my precious matches on and lighted the candle, as we had disare covered that the bats were only to be found in the high vaulted cubicula. ind Shielding my light with the utmost !at- care, I proceeded down these interminable passages, but nowhere did I >lly come upon any trace of Maurice, the neither could I recognize any of the frescoes or decorations upon the no walls. uld My watch told me it was nearly 3 ec- i o'clock, and after walking on in this ,sh- | way for about half an hour a panic ible; seized me that Maurice might have ita- returned to the cubiculum during my iles absence and, not finding me there, the had gone again to look for me. In or this way we might wander round >re,! after each other till death put an un- end to our sufferings, as it was evident that few tourists visited this in i distant part of tne uatacomns. feet: Terrified at this new idea, I turnwe ed to retrace my steps if possible, 3 to to our original cubiculum, when, tc rom my joy, I heard the sound of some ? SHE'S 100?NEVER DANCED. Doesn't Want to Vote and Scorn the Automobile. Mrs. Mary F. Hodgdon, of thi town, observed her 100th birthda to-day at the home of Mrs. ElizE beth Moulton, at West Wenham. Sh is in possession of all her faculties t a remarkable degree and talked wit many visitors. "Votes for women find little favor with her. "I think that the women hav enough about their homes to loo after without bothering about vol ing," Mrs. Hodgdon said to-day. In all her long life Mrs. Hodgdo never attended a dance. She classe dances as frivolous and believes tha young people can put their spar time to better advantage. She ha never ridden in an automobile, al though her son owns one. "The old way is the best, and would rather ride behind the ol horse I had than all the automobile there are," she said.?Wenham Mass., dispatch to New York Tribune Chattanooga Gets Next Reunion. Macon, Ga., May 9.?Chattanoog landed the next reunion of the Con federate veterans by a vote of 1,04; to-day. San Antonio received 47 votes and Jacksonville 606 votes. The contest was keen and som feeling was created by the part play ed by Secretary Hyman, of the Ma con Chamber of Commerce, who an nounced that bis influence had beei bought for San Antonio. one running quickly toward me dowj a fairly wide passage that joined th> one I was in at right angles. Thi must be Maurice returning, thought, or perhaps the guide, whi would help me to find him. I raised a glad cry, and started o1 running to meet the new-comer Then to my horror, the footstep ceased. Instead, round the corner o the wall appeared a narrow whit face, surrounded by a moving mist like a spirit shroud. From that pal countenance gleamed two enormou eyes, fixed upon mine in an awfu glare! A strange and offensive smel smote upon my failing senses, am once again I fell to the earth uncon scious. The next time I opened my eyes was still in the passageway, but?oh the blessed change! Several smok candles illumined the jagged walls and two or three men of the peasan class were talking excitedly together while another man with a badge o: his cap was dabbling my face wit; water and telling me in broken Eng lish not to be afraid. A few minutes walk down the wid passage brought us to a large hoi in the wall, through which to m surprise, streamed the gloriou morning sunshine. Maurice, lookin very white and tired, was there, wit Mr. and Mrs. Anderson and two o three gentlemen from the hotel. My watch still indicated a quarte to 3 o'clock, though they told me i was really 8:30. Evidently it ha stopped at that Pour, un me wa back to the hotel they told us tha when we did not return in time fo table d'hote a hue and cry was rais ed, but it was not until nearly mic night that a cab driver came forwar to say that he had driven a young Er glish lady and gentleman late tha afternoon to the Catacombs of S Calyxtus. He had stopped ther about three-quarters of an hour, bu then, as they had not ordered him t wait, he had returned, supposin they had gone home some other wa] A search party had immediatel been formed, and for hours had bee exploring the miles of labyrintl hoping each moment to come upo us. At about 2 o'clock they had m? Maurice, wandering blindly in th dark, half dazed with exhaustion an misery. It seems that after leavin me he had found a pool of unknow ripnth from which he had quenche ? his thirst, but on rising from h: knees his cap, to which was pinne the precious taper, had fallen int the water, rendering his candle us< less. He had vainly used up the la: of his matches endeavoring to religt it, and had henceforth wandere aimlessly about in the dark, a pre to every terrible imagning. Hours afterward they had com upon a large white goat?the cam of my last fright?rushing wildly t< ward a distant 3pot of light?tt i hole in the rock by which it had ei tered. Following back in the dire< tion from which it had come, the i found my inanimate body. The ruffian who had so basely d< serted us was never discovers though every possible investigate , was made. l Though much exhausted by 01 I trying experience, we left Rome i i the earliest possible moment. Ui fortunately, however, the exposui t of that dreadful night, acting upon constitution already delicate, wj too much for poor Maurice, and c , the twenty-first day after our adven > ure he died, a victim to Roman fi ver.?Wide World Magazine. SLEW WIFE AND HER MOTHER, is E. B. Alford Assisted to Gallows at Macon, Where He is Hanged. s Macon, May 10.?E. B. Alford, v who, three years ago shot and killed L_ his wife and his mother-in-law, had e to be assisted to the gallows to-day 0 to be hanged. He was in a very weak h and emaciated condition. He had ? hopes of being respited until the last, and his attorney, John R. Cooper, did everything possible to save his k client's neck. Every loophole of the law was barred, however, and as Gov. Brown refused to interfere further, Sheriff n Hicks carried out the order of the s court. Alford was hanged at 1 o'clock, and was pronounced dead in e a few moments. He was suffering h from tuberculosis, due to long confinement in the jail. When brought from his cell he was 1 barely able to walk and it was necesd sary for two deputy sheriffs to help s him. '? Alford was given several respites by the governor and a lunacy commission was appointed to examine into his sanity. He was pronounced -a r* r* r j 4- a : ~ sane, ana uuv. joiuyyll reiuseu lu iua terfere further. g News Notes of Science. ^ The United States exported more than 12,000,000 pounds of dynamite and nearly 1,000,000 pounds of gunpowder last year. European factories that make imi? tation butter with cocoanut oil as a a base turn out 16,000,000 pounds of the product a week. A refrigerator to keep the contents a in good condition features a new coin in the slot sandwich vending s machine for public places. 1 Roller skates propelled by two0 cylinder motors of one-quarter horsepower are a French invention, the * fuel tank being worn on a belt. An electrically heated tray for ? keeping food warm while it is being A served is one of the newest ideas in e the line of electric heaters. An instrument has been perfected e by German electricians for accuratej ly measuring the voltage of high ' tension currents up to 150,000 volts. , The heating element is in the bottom of a new electrical frying pan so that it can be turned over and the j bottom used to cook food in ordinary utensils. y Economy in Epitaphs. 5, t In a certain town of Nebraska lives a man who has ben so unfortn unate as to lose three wives, who h were buried side by side. For a long _ time the Nebraskan deliberated as to > whether he should erect a separate 8 headstone for each, commemorating e her virtues, but the expense deterred y him. Finally a happy solution of s the difficulty presented itself, g He had the Christian name of each h engraved on a small stone?"Mary," r "Elizabeth," "Matilda"?a hand cut on each stone pointing to a large r stone in the centre of the lot, and it under each hand the words: d "For epitaphs see large stone."? y Lippincott's. Scraps of News. ?r >' Sixty-three airmen were killed last year. d The shortage of labor in Australia l" is not improving. Lt Mexico's government is planning to have postal savings banks. e Radical changes in the clothing of Lt Chinese in all stations of life are 0 indicated by the expanding of the g Chinese market for clothing. For ironing laces and dainty faby rics an iron has been brought in n England in the form of a polished steel roller, fitted with electric heatn ing units. Resembling a huge pneumatic * hammer is a new compressed air pile e driver, which delivers its blows so d rapidly that a pile can not spring S back between them. n Pulp remaining after the sugar d has been extracted from beets in beet sugar factories has usually been d thrown away as worthless, but now 0 it is used for feeding cows. The ^ assertion is made that it is a good 5* milk producer. It ?mm d Pointed Paragraphs. ,y You can always tell a belle by her ie rings. 52 The man who can please himself >_ is easily pleased. ie A man never complains of his wife's relations if she hasn't any. c_ Physical culture doesn't necessary rily make a woman strong minded. But a man who leads a double life B_ never does two men's work. 3 Don't be a quitter. There is still ,n plenty of room in the hall of fame. It's easier to lead some men to ir drink than it is to drive them away from it. a_ Many a woman lets her neighbor's re affairs worry her more than her own. All women are more or less credu 1S lous and some have faith in their (n husbands. Ice cream freezers, aft sizes, best e- makes, at G. O. Simmons. See our line before you buy. I } WHICH* BAN* gA Is your money Iiid away ir where the burglar is like locked up tight in our ^ gA massive steel safe, but t "2 well? You do not per hi ^ your money is in when k gA day the newspapers tell this habit. If you would edge that your money is J once and open an account no chances. JBHRHARDT BA EHRHARDT, FEWER KILLED, MORE INJUREI Results of Railroad Accidents fo Last Quarter of 1911. Washington, May 8.?Two hue dred and forty-two persons wer killed and 4,706 were injured in trai accidents in the United States durin the quarter ending December 31 1911, according to an accident bull'; tin issued to-day by the Inter-Stat commerce commission. This is "a decrease of six in th number killed and an increase of 97 in the number injured, as compare with the corresponding quarter o 1910. NOTICE OF REFERENCE T< PROVE CLAIMS. Notice is hereby given to all pei sons having claims against the estat of E. Morris, deceased, that a refer ence will be held at the office o the Probate Judge of Bamberg coun ty, at Bamberg, S. C., on the 24tl day of May, 1912, eleven o'clock a m., for the proof of claims agains said estate; and all persons havin claims against said estate will appea at said time and place and prove th same, and failing so to do will b barred. G. P. HARMON, Judge of Probate of Bamberg Cc April 27th, 1912. MEETING OF TAXPAYERS. A meeting of the taxpayers voters of Bamberg School Districl No. 14, is hereby called to be hel in the city hall in the town of Bam berg on Thursday, June 6th, 1912 at 4 o'clock p. m., for the purpose o electing one member of the board o trustees, and for the transaction o any other business that may legall come before the meeting. W. M. BRABHAM, Chairman Board of Trustees May 8th, 1912. IP YOU WANT A POLICY OnYouHife IN ONE OP THE MOST LIBERAL AND LARGEST DIVIDEND DECLARING INSURANCE COMPANIES IN AMERICA, WRITE OR CALL ON 1 Isaac M. Loryea Bamberg, S. C. Office Over . 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