Tried for Her Life. Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth

      "We came upon the Haunted Chapel by chance, in the dead of night. No one could have known so soon that we were there."

      "No one did know it. The constables were coming there for us, but they would have found you, had we not brought you away with us. That was my doing. I made your removal the condition of my silence."

      "Girl, who are you? I ask again; and why do you take this interest in me?"

      "Lady, I am an outlaw like yourself, hunted like yourself, in peril like yourself, guiltless like yourself; the daughter, sister, companion of thieves. Yet, never will I become a thief, or the wife or the mother of one!"

      "This is terrible!" said Sybil with a shudder. "But why should this be so?"

      "It is my fate."

      "And why do you care for me?"

      "I thought I had answered that question in telling you all that I have told about myself, for 'a fellow feeling makes us wondrous kind;' but if you want another reason I can give it to you. I care for you because I know that you are guiltless of the crime for which you are hunted through the world. And I am resolved, come what may, that you shall not suffer for it."

      "In the name of heaven, what do you say?" exclaimed Sybil, in strong excitement. "If you know me to be guiltless, you must know who is guilty! Nay, you do know it! You can not only save my life, but clear my fame."

      "Hush! I know nothing, but that you are guiltless. I can do nothing but save your life."

      "You took me away in the absence of my husband. Why could you not have waited a little while until his return, and—"

      "Ha! ha! ha!" laughed the girl, breaking in upon Sybil's speech; "waited until his return, and take two strangers, himself and his servant, into our confidence! Moloch would have brained me, or Belial would have poisoned me if I had done such a thing. We are knaves, but not fools, Mrs. Berners."

      "But when will you communicate with him, to relieve his dreadful suspense?"

      "As soon as it shall be safe to do so. Our first care must be our own safety, but our second, will be yours."

      Sybil said no more at the moment; but sat looking at the speaker, and thinking of all that had befallen her in the Haunted Chapel. Could this bright, warm, spirited creature possibly be the "damp girl" whose two nightly visitations had appalled her so much? She put the question:

      "Tell me; are you the one who came twice to my bed-side and lay down beside me, or is there another?"

      Her strange hostess laughed aloud, and clapped her hands.

      And there immediately appeared before them, as if it had dropped from the sky, or risen out of the earth, a figure that caused Sybil to start and utter a half-suppressed scream.

      It was that of a small, thin girl, so bloodless that her complexion was bluish white; her hair and eyes were also very light, and her dress was a faded out blue calico, that clung close to her form; her whole aspect was cold, damp, clammy, corpse-like, as she stood mutely with hanging hands before her summoner.

      "For Heaven's sake, who is she?" inquired Sybil, under her breath.

      "We call her Proserpine, because she was reft from the upper world and brought down here. She is my maid, my shadow, my wraith, my anything you like, that never leaves me. She it was who visited you in idleness or curiosity, I suppose. She bore the taper before you, when you came through the underground passage. More than this I cannot tell you of her, since more I do not know myself. You may go now, Proserpine. And tell old Hecate to hurry up the breakfast, as we have company this morning. And do you come and let me know when it is ready."

      Sybil kept her eyes on the pallid girl to see where she would go, and she saw her slip through an almost invisible opening in the side of the rock. Then Sybil turned again to her strange entertainer, and said:

      "There is something more I wish to know, if you do not mind telling me. Why were we drugged with opium that night?"

      "Ha! ha! ha! We had some goods to remove from the vault. You were all in our way. We were obliged either to kill you or to drug you. So we drugged you," laughed the girl.

      "And nearly killed us, as well."

      "Yes; we had to make sure of your taking enough to put you to sleep, so I poured the laudanum into your coffee-pot pretty freely, I tell you."

      At this moment the bloodless phantom appeared again, and in the same thin, reed-like voice that sounded so far away, she announced that breakfast was ready.

      "Come, then; I know you must need nourishment," said Sybil's wild hostess, rising to lead the way.

      And now Sybil saw how it was that the pale girl had slipped through the almost invisible aperture, like a spirit vanishing through a solid wall; for the rocky partitions of this natural underground palace overlapped each other, leaving a passage of about one foot in width and three feet in length between the walls.

      Through this they passed into a smaller cavern, which, like the larger one, had its roof and walls incrusted with pearly spars and hung with sparkling stalactites, and its floor covered with living moss.

      This cavern was not only beautiful, but comfortable. A large charcoal furnace that stood in the middle of the floor agreeably warmed the place, while the appetizing odor of hot coffee, broiled birds, and buckwheat cakes filled the air.

      But the furniture of the place was the most incongruous and amazing that could be imagined. A wooden table of the rudest workmanship stood near the furnace, but it was covered with a white damask table-cloth of the finest description, and adorned with a service of the purest silver plate. With this elegant and costly array was intermingled crockery-ware of the coarsest pattern. Around the table were placed two three-legged stools of the roughest manufacture, and one piano chair of the most finished workmanship, of carved rosewood and cut velvet.

      Waiting on this table stood the "damp girl" mentioned before, and also a very small, dark, withered old woman, in a black gown, with a red handkerchief tied over her head and under her chin.

      "Come, Mrs. Berners, you are my guest, and I will give you the seat of honor," said Sybil's nameless hostess, as she led her to the little piano chair and put her on it.

      Then for herself she took one of the three-legged stools, saying to her handmaid:

      "You may take the other two seats away. Moloch and Belial will not be at breakfast with us this morning. They have gone back to the vault to lay the train."

      "Dangerous," muttered the old woman between her shut lips.

      "Never you mind, Mother Hecate! Moloch's courage and Belial's craft will enable them to take care of themselves," said the girl, as she set a cup of hot coffee before her guest, and placed a broiled partridge and a buckwheat cake upon her plate.

      Sybil's long ride of the night before, followed as it had been by a refreshing sleep, had so restored her strength and appetite that, despite her late fright and her present anxieties, she made a very good breakfast.

      "And now," said the young hostess, as they arose from the table, "what will you do? Will you lie down on my bed in the next cavern and sleep; or will you sit here where it is warm, and talk: or will you let me show you through this net-work of caverns, that underlies all this mountain?"

      "You are very kind, at all events, and I thank you much, and I think I would like to look at this great natural curiosity, whose very existence so near my home I never even suspected," said Sybil; for she really wished to explore the wonderful labyrinth, not only from motives of curiosity, but also of policy; for she thought it would be well to know the ins and outs of this underground habitation, in case she should find it necessary to make her escape.

      So her hostess took her back into the splendid outer cavern, saying:

      "You do not wish to go back through any of those caverns you passed in coming here, so we will go this way."