And stretching forth her snowy arms (for it was round the waist and by the feet that she was fastened to the chair), she convulsively placed her open palms against the wooden walls of the pit, as if she could by that spasmodic movement arrest the descent of the terrible apparatus that was bearing her down into that hideous, unknown gulf! But the walls were smooth and even, and presented nothing whereon she could fix her grasp. Her brain reeled, and for a few minutes she sat motionless, in dumb, inert despair. Then again, in obedience to some mechanical impulse, she glanced upward; the light of the lamp was now dimly seen, like the sun through a dense mist--but the dark figures were still bending over the brink of the abyss, thirty yards above. The descent was still progressing and the noise of the machinery still reached her ears, with buzzing, humming, monotonous indistinctness. She shrieked not now--she screamed not any more; but it was not resignation that sealed her lips;--it was despair! Suddenly she became aware of the gradual disappearance of the three nuns; as she descended, the wall seemed to rise slowly upward and cover them from her view. Then, for an instant there was a slight shock given to the platform whereon the chair was placed--as if it rested on something beneath. But no;--the fearful descent still went on--for, when she again stretched forth her hand to touch the walls, they appeared to be slowly rising--rising! She was now involved in almost total darkness; but far--far overhead the dim luster of the lamp was seen; and the four walls of the gulf now appeared to touch the ceiling of the room above, and to inclose that faint but still distinct orb within the narrow space thus shut in. The noise of the machinery also reached her still--but merely with a humming sound that was only just audible. For an instant she doubted whether she was still descending; but, alas! when her arms were a third time convulsively stretched forth, her fair hands felt the walls slipping away from her touch--gliding upward, as it were, with steady emotion. Then she knew that the descent had not ceased. But whither was she going? to what awful depth was she progressing? Already she conjectured, was she at least sixty yards beneath that dim yellow orb which every instant appeared to shine as through a deeper, deepening mist. For what fate was she reserved? and where was she? Suddenly it struck her that she was an inmate of the Carmelite Convent; for the rumors alluded to in a preceding chapter had often met her ears; and her imagination naturally associated them with the occurrences of that dreadful night. The piercing shrieks--the noise of machinery--the disappearance from time to time of some member of that monastic institution, all the incidents, in fine, to which those rumors had ever pointed, now seemed to apply to her own case. These reflections flashed, with lightning rapidity, through her brain, and paralyzed her with horror.