But see! Suddenly their white-draped couch begins to move! Slowly, silently, steadily, it commences to descend! Heavens! Will not some one warn those unconscious sleepers? Will not some one bid them awake, arise, and flee? Ah! but what could two such defenseless women do against the powers at work. They could not escape even should they awake, for the entrance to that innocent looking white cottage was closely guarded, and none could enter or retreat without the knowledge and consent of that rough, stern sentinel! Reader, you doubtless recognize the place as the same to which Robert Ellerton was so adroitly enticed and made a prisoner. The villain who had knocked madam’s faithful driver senseless from his seat had driven the unsuspecting women back, though by an unfrequented road, to the German settlement which they had but just left. And now they were in the power of a band of heartless villains, sleeping as calmly and sweetly as if no such thing as danger or treachery inhabited the earth! Softly, gently as a tender mother would bear her slumbering infant upon her bosom, their bed descended through the floor, down, down—twenty, yes, thirty feet, when it was received by four muffled figures and carefully wheeled to one side of a most gorgeous apartment, which contained every comfort and luxury that the most fastidious could desire; after which the trap noiselessly ascended to its place, leaving no crack or crevice by which its existence could possibly be detected! Immediately after the four muffled forms silently glided from the room, leaving our friends to pass the remainder of the night unmolested. * * * * * Late the next morning Dora opened her deep blue eyes, and with one fair hand swept aside the spotless curtain, and gazed out into the room. An expression of wondering admiration shone in her lovely orbs as she beheld the splendor, lighted by the many-jetted chandelier, which surrounded her, and she raised her hand as if to brush away some imaginary vision; but when she looked again the fair scene remained. With a breathless voice, and a quickly beating heart, she shook her aunt, and cried out: “Auntie, auntie, wake up, and tell me what this means!” “What, child—what is it?” exclaimed the old lady, in a fright, sitting bolt upright in bed, and unable to get her eyes open. “Why, this lovely room!—all these beautiful things! Everything around us is gorgeous. This is not the room we came into last night. That was plain and homely, although neat and clean. And—why—but this is the same bed!” “Sure enough,” said Madame Alroyd, staring about with an amazed expression on her face. “We are either bewitched,” she continued, “or our room has been entered during the night, and we borne off, bed and all, to another.”