Her long hair, which she had unbraided before she was carried off from the Riverola mansion, floated over her shoulders, and enhanced the expression of ineffable despair which her pallid countenance now wore. Wildly she glanced around, as she was being hurried from the room; and frantic screams escaped her lips. But there was no one nigh to succor--no one to melt at the outbursts of her anguish! The three nuns dragged, rather than conducted her to an adjacent apartment, which was lighted by a lamp of astonishing brilliancy, and hung in a skylight raised above the roof. On the floor, immediately beneath this lamp, stood an armchair of wicker-work; and from this chair two stout cords ascended to the ceiling, through which they passed by means of two holes perforated for the purpose. When Flora was dragged by the nuns to the immediate vicinity of the chair, which her excited imagination instantly converted into an engine of torture, that part of the floor on which the chair stood seemed to tremble and oscillate beneath her feet, as if it were a trap-door. The most dreadful sensations now came over her: she felt as if her brain was reeling--as if she must go mad. A fearful scream burst from her lips, and she struggled with the energy of desperation, as the nuns endeavored to thrust her into the chair. "No--no!" she exclaimed, frantically; "you shall not torture me--you dare not murder me! What have I done to merit this treatment! Mercy! mercy!" But her cries and her struggles were alike useless; for she was now firmly bound to the chair, into which the nuns had forced her to seat herself. Then commenced the maddening scene which will be found in the ensuing chapter. CHAPTER XIX. THE DESCENT--THE CHAMBER OF PENITENCE. Having bound Flora Francatelli to the chair in the manner just described, the three nuns fell back a few paces, and the wretched girl felt the floor giving way under her. A dreadful scream burst from her lips, as slowly--slowly the chair sank down, while the working of hidden machinery in the roof, and the steady, monotonous revolution of wheels, sounded with ominous din upon her ears. An icy stream appeared to pour over her soul; wildly she cast around her eyes, and then more piercing became her shrieks, as she found herself gradually descending into what seemed to be a pit or well--only that it was square instead of round. The ropes creaked--the machinery continued its regular movement, and the lamp fixed in the skylight overhead became less and less brilliant. And bending over the mouth of this pit into which she was descending were the three nuns--standing motionless and silent like hideous specters, on the brink of the aperture left by the square platform or trap, whereon the chair was fixed. "Mercy! Mercy!" exclaimed Flora, in a voice expressive of the most acute anguish.