Jules Verne

“ Bathory and Zathmar abandoned themselves without reserve to their reveries, but Sandorf was invincibly dominated by an idea which had taken possession of him. He could not doubt that there had been treachery in this mysterious affair. For a man of his character to die without punishing the traitor, whoever he was, without knowing even who had betrayed him, was to die twice over. Who had got hold of this message to which the police owed the discovery of the conspiracy and the arrest of the conspirators? ”

“ How shall we reward you?”
“Your thanks are sufficient, gentlemen,” said the warder, who could not conceal his emotion.
He soon brought in the writing materials. The prisoners spent the greater part of the day in making their last arrangements. Sandorf said all that a father's heart could prompt in his instructions regarding his baby girl, who would soon be an orphan; Bathory, all that a husband and father could think of in bidding a loving farewell to his wife and son; Zathmar, all that a master could say to an old servant who remained his only friend. ”

“ Bathory nor her son, nor the steward, Lendeck, to whose care Sandorf's daughter had been given, knew any more where the prisoners had been taken to after their arrest than Borik in his prison at Trieste. Doubtless, also, neither knew of the doom in store for the conspirators.
Thus passed the earlier hours of the day. Occasionally Sandorf and his friends would talk for awhile. Occasionally they would be silent for some time, and then the whole of their lives would be lived over again in their memories with an intensity of impression quite super-natural. ”

“ The Austrian Government knew nothing of the conspiracy beyond what they heard at Trieste. The conspirators in Hungary and Transylvania remained absolutely unknown. There was no trace in existence of their complicity in the plot. Sandorf, Bathory and Zathmar need have felt no anxiety on this head. As far as they were concerned they had made up their minds to deny everything until some material evidence was produced. In that case they knew that their lives were forfeit. Others would one day take up the movement that had now proved abortive. The cause of independence would find new leaders. ”

“ Such is the phenomenon met with in the crypts of the Pantheon in Paris, in the interior of the dome of St. Peter's at Rome, and in the whispering gallery at St. Paul's in London. The faintest word uttered at one focus is distinctly heard at the focus opposite.
There could be no doubt that two or more persons were talking in the corridor or in a cell situated at the end of the diameter, the vocal point of which was close to the door of the cell occupied by Sandorf.
By a sign he called his companions to him. The three stood listening. ”

“ But that the cryptographic dispatch could have been deciphered without the grating by which it had been formed was incomprehensible.
“And besides,” continued Sandorf, “we know that the letter was read, and it could not have been read without the grating! It was this letter which put the police on our traces, and it was on it that the whole charge was based.”
“It matters very little, after all,” answered Bathory.
“On the contrary, it does matter,” said Sandorf. “We have been betrayed! And if there has been a traitor—not to know—”
Sandorf suddenly stopped. The name of Sarcany occurred to him ”

“ Then Sandorf noticed that the road lay into the interior.
At eleven o'clock the chaise stopped to change horses. It was only at a farm, where the horses were waiting ready to be harnessed. It was not a post-station.
The escort resumed its journey. The carriage passed along a road among the vineyards where the vines interlaced themselves in festoons to the branches of the mulberry-trees. The road was flat and the carriage made rapid progress. The darkness now grew more profound, for heavy clouds, brought up by a violent sirocco from the south-east, covered the sky ”

“ The government had to content itself with trying Sandorf and his companions for high treason.
The inquiries took several days; and it was not till the 20th of June that the proceedings began with the examination of the accused. They were not even confronted with each other, and were only to meet before their judges.
The chiefs of the Trieste conspiracy were, as we have said, to be tried before a court-martial. The proceedings before such a court never take long, the trial is conducted very quickly, and there is no delay in the execution of the sentence. ”

“ At once he detected an acoustical phenomenon, such as is observable in the interiors of galleries and domes or under vaults of ellipsoidal form. The noise traveling from one point of the ellipse, after following the contour of the walls without being perceptible at any intermediate point, is plainly heard at the other focus. ”