‘It must be done,’ she murmured, as she approached the steps. ‘I can endure this dreadful life no longer.’ She descended the steps hurriedly, but on the lowest that was uncovered by the water, she paused, and gazed upon the dark bosom of the flood that rolled with a hoarse dull murmur. ‘Death! What is it?’ murmured the miserable girl, clasping her small white hands, and looking down upon the water that rolled darkly at her feet. ‘Awful mystery, which I wish, yet fear, to solve! Is it but the intermediate state which mortals pass through to free the soul from the grossness which clogs it during its sojourn on earth, and fit it for a higher and happier state of existence? or is it a long sleep—a night without dreams, and to which no morrow comes? Is it, as some say, the chrysalis state from which we emerge into new life, like the butterfly? Unfortunate analogy!—the repugnance to the soul’s annihilation, this longing after immortality? Oh there must be something beyond the grave, though what I cannot say. It cannot be worse, whatever it may be than the life I am leading.’ She paused in her muttered soliloquy, thinking she heard soft and cautious footsteps behind her, but on casting a look up the steps, she saw no one; indeed the fog prevented her from seeing more than a couple of yards. ‘It is nothing,’ she muttered. ‘Now to end a life of which I have long been weary! It is but a plunge—a splashing of the water—a circling ripple on the surface—and all will be over!’ As she murmured these words, the poor girl threw herself into the dark waters, adding to the long list of man’s perfidy and inhumanity—‘One more unfortunate victim.’ -------------- CHAPTER XV We must now return for a space to Inez and her captors. The unfortunate girl had but a very confused idea of where she was being conveyed. When the party reached the ranch she was taken from her horse, and carried rather than led, into the building. She was taken down a narrow flight of steps into what appeared to her to be a subterranean apartment. And such, in fact it was, for the dwelling to which she had been taken had formerly been a portion of one of the old mission establishments, which are so numerous in California. The vaults beneath it, had doubtless been excavated as a place of retreat in case of attacks from hostile Indians, or as a depository for the sacred vessels of the church.