Tried for Her Life. Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth

foot disappeared in the darkness below.

      "Phew! what a damp, deadly air comes up from that foul pit! it hasn't been opened in half a century, I suppose," exclaimed Mr. Benthwick, taking hold of the rusty bars and trying to shake the grating; but finding it immovable, he ceased his efforts and turned away.

      Then he went to the chapel door, and called his men around him, saying:

      "There is no sign of the miscreants inside the ruin; we must search for them outside."

      And he divided his party into four detachments; and one he sent up the narrow path leading to the fountain, another he sent up on the heights, and another down in the glen; while he himself led the fourth back upon the path leading through the thicket. And they beat the woods in all directions without coming upon the "trail" of the burglars. But Sheriff Benthwick, in going through the thicket with his little party, met a harmless negro on a tired horse with a little dog before him. The sheriff knew the negro, and accosted him by name.

      "Joe, what are you doing here, so far from your home?"

      Joe was ready with his answer:

      "If you please, marster, I am coming to fetch away some truck left here by a picnic party from our house."

      "Ah! a picnic party! I know all about that picnic party! I have been up to the old ruin and had a talk with your master, and he has told me of it," said the sheriff cunningly, hoping to betray the negro into some admissions that might be of service to him in tracing Sybil.

      But his cunning was no match for Joe's.

      "Well, marster," he said, "if Marse Lyon telled you all about that, you must be satisfied into your honorable mind, as I am a telling of the truth, and does come after the truck left in the chapel, which you may see my wagon a-standin' out there on the road beyant for yourself."

      "Then if you have a wagon, why do you come on horseback?"

      "Lor's marster, I couldn't no ways get a wagon through this here thicket."

      The sheriff felt that that was true, and that he had been making a fool of himself. He made a great many more inquiries, but received no satisfaction from astute Joe. He asked no question about the little dog, considering her of no importance. And at length, having no pretext to stop the negro, he let him pass and go on.

      Joe, glad to be relieved, touched up his horse and trotted briskly through the thicket, and through the graveyard, to the ruined door of the old chapel. Here he dismounted, tied his horse to a tree, and put down the little Skye terrier, who no sooner found herself at liberty, than she bounded into the church and ran with joyous leaps and barks, and jumped upon her master, licking, or kissing, as she understood kissing, his hands and face all over with her little tongue, and assuring him how glad she was to see him.

      "Nelly, Nelly, good Nelly, pretty Nelly," said Mr. Berners, caressing her soft, curly brown hair.

      But Nelly grew fidgety; something was wanting—the best thing of all was wanting—her mistress! So she jumped from her master's lap, not forgetting to kiss him good-by, by a direct lick upon his lips, and then she ran snuffing and whining about the floor of the chapel until she came to the mattress and blankets, where she began wildly to root and paw about, whining piteously all the while.

      "Nelly, good dog," said Mr. Berners, taking the blanket and holding it to her nose. "Sybil, Sybil! seek her, seek her!"

      The little Skye terrier looked up with a world of intelligence and devotion in her brown eyes, and re-commenced her rooting and pawing and snuffing around the bedding, and for some little time was at fault; but at length, with a quick bark of delight, she struck a line of scent, and with her nose close to the floor, cautiously followed it to the door of the vault, at which she stopped and began to scratch and bark wildly, hysterically—running back to her master and whining, and then running forward to the door, and barking and scratching with all her might and main.

      "There she is, Marster. Mistess is down in that vault, so sure's I'm a livin' nigger," exclaimed Joe, who now came up to the door.

      "Good Heaven! she could not live there an hour; the very air is death! But if there, with a breath of life remaining, she must hear and answer us," exclaimed Lyon Berners, in breathless haste, as he went to the door of the vault; and putting his lips close to the bars, called loudly:

      "Sybil, Sybil! my darling, are you there?"

      But though he bent his ear and listened in the dead silence and dread suspense, no breath of answer came. And little Nelly, who had ceased her noise, began to whine again.

      Lyon Berners soothed her into quietness, and began to call again and again; but still no breath of response from the dark and silent depths below.

      "If she is there, she is dead!" groaned Lyon Berners, in a voice of agony, as he thought of all Sybil had told him of the open vault and the mysterious figures that had passed to and from it in the night, and which he had set down as so many dreams and nightmares, reverted to his memory. Oh, if this chapel were indeed the den of thieves; if they had some secret means of opening that vault; if they had come upon his sleeping wife while she was left alone in the chapel, and robbed her of the money and jewels she had about her person, and then murdered her, and taken her body down into the vault for concealment; or if, as was most likely, for there was no mark of violence or stain of blood about the place—they had taken her to the vault first, and robbed and murdered her there.

      Oh, if these horrible fears should be realized!

      With the very thought Lyon Berners went pale and cold as marble in an anguish such as he had never felt in the severest crisis of their sorely troubled lives.

      "Joe!" he cried, "go search the wagon for that crowbar belonging to Captain Pendleton. It must be there somewhere. And I must break this vault door open, or break my heart-strings in the trial."

      "The crowbar is all right, Marster. And I'll go and fetch it as fast as I can. But we'll nebber see Mistess alive again! Nebber, Marster, in this world!" sobbed Joe, as he arose from his knees near the door and went upon his errand.

      Little Nelly renewed her passionate demonstrations of distress and anxiety; now furiously barking and scratching at the door; now jumping upon her master's breast, and looking up into his face and whining, as if telling him that her mistress was down there, imploring his human aid to free her, and wondering why it was not given.

      "I know it, my poor little dog! I know it all!" said Lyon, soothingly.

      But little Nelly was incredulous and inconsolable, and continued her hysterical deportment through the half hour which intervened between the departure and the return of Joe.

      "Ah, give me the tool!" eagerly exclaimed Mr. Berners, snatching the crowbar from the negro, as soon as he saw him.

      And he went and applied it with all his force to the door, straining his strong muscles until they knotted like cords, while Joe looked on in anxiety and suspense, and little Nelly stood approvingly wagging her tail, as if to say:

      "Now, at last, you are doing the right thing."

      But with all Lyon's straining and wrenching, he failed to move the impassable door one hair's breadth.

      Joe also took a turn at the crowbar; but with no more success.

      They rested a while, and then united their efforts, and with all their strength essayed to force the door; but without the slightest effect upon its immovable bars.

      "I might have known we could not do it this way, for neither Pendleton nor myself could succeed in doing so. Joe, we must take down the altar and take up the flagstones; but that will be a work of time and difficulty, and you will have to go back home and bring the proper tools."

      "But the day is most gone, Marster, and it will take me most all night to go to Black Hall and get the tools and come back here. And is my poor mistress to stay down there into that dismal place all that time?" sobbed the negro.

      "Joe! if she is there, as the little dog insists that she is,