As he approached this table, Samuel perceived a piece of white vellum, on
which were inscribed these words: "My testament is to be opened in this
saloon. The other apartments are to remain closed, until after the
reading of my last will--M. De R."

"Yes," said the Jew, as he perused with emotion these lines traced so
long ago; "this is the same recommendation as that which I received from
my father; for it would seem that the other apartments of this house are
filled with objects, on which M. de Rennepont set a high value, not for
their intrinsic worth, but because of their origin. The Hall of Mourning
must be a strange and mysterious chamber. Well," added Samuel, as he drew
from his pocket a register bound in black shagreen, with a brass lock,
from which he drew the key, after placing it upon the table, "here is the
statement of the property in hand, which I have been ordered to bring
hither, before the arrival of the heirs."

The deepest silence reigned in the room, at the moment when Samuel placed
the register on the table. Suddenly a simple and yet most startling
occurrence roused him from his reverie. In the next apartment was heard
the clear, silvery tone of a clock, striking slowly ten. And the hour was
ten! Samuel had too much sense to believe in perpetual motion, or in the
possibility of constructing a clock to go far one hundred and fifty
years. He asked himself, therefore, with surprise and alarm, how this
clock could still be going, and how it could mark so exactly the hour of
the day. Urged with restless curiosity, the old man was about to enter
the room; but recollecting the recommendation of his father, which had
now been confirmed by the few lines he had just read from De Rennepont's
pen, he stopped at the door, and listened with extreme attention.

He heard nothing--absolutely nothing, but the last dying vibration of the