“Oh, if you would only not persist,” moaned Gloria, as holding on to the sides of the ladder, she groped her way down after her conductor. “But I must persist,” replied Philippa, who had now reached the bottom. With some danger and difficulty Gloria descended the ladder and stood by her side. The feeble rays of the candle showed but a small circle of light just around them. All beyond was utter darkness. Suddenly Gloria grasped the arm of her companion and shuddered. “What’s the matter?” demanded Philippa. “Listen!” “What?” “Don’t you hear something?” “No!” “Oh, listen! There it is again!” “What, I say?” “That moaning, gurgling sound, as of some one strangling and groaning!” “Oh, that is the sound of some subterranean, pent-up stream. I have found such in the caves under these mountains, and I have heard that the foundations of this house communicate with a chain of caverns opening from one into another under the whole breadth of the mountain base, and more than one stream of water must traverse them,” said Philippa. “Then this is a very dangerous place! This is far down under the deepest foundations of the house, and in this utter darkness we might step into a stream of water, and be swept away and drowned. And oh! of all the gates that lead into the other life, a black water gate must be the most appalling! Do come back, Philippa!” “I cannot! Something draws me on! But you keep behind me. I will go on before. If I should disappear, either down into a cave or into a subterranean stream, do you turn and go back to the upper world by the way you came.” “This is foolish, foolhardy, wicked, Philippa.” “I know it is, but I cannot help it. Something draws me on, I tell you!” exclaimed the willful creature. And at the same moment she stumbled, recovered herself, and held the candle close to the ground to see what the obstacle had been. “Oh, gracious Heaven, what is this?” cried Philippa, in a tone of sickening horror, as she recoiled from the object. “What is it?” whispered Gloria, in a frightened voice. “Look! Look!” gasped Philippa. Gloria caught the candle from the girl’s shaking hand, held it down, peered into the obscurity, and instantly sprang back with a piercing shriek. They were on the very brink of a black torrent that rushed along through the depths of a deep and yawning gulch. Another moment—another step, and they must have plunged down the precipice into the dark water of that buried river, and been whirled on to destruction in the darkest depths of the abyss. But it was not even that impending doom that had appalled them! It was the dire object that rose from the earth on the bank of the chasm! For a moment they stood clinging together, half petrified, and then, without a word, turned and fled to the foot of the ladder, and climbed it with tumultuous haste. On reaching the cellar over this cavern, they hurried across it to the door leading up stairs to the back building communicating with the house.