She thought of her Uncle Charlie, to whom the loss of Black Bess would be so severe at the present time; she thought of the sick child at home, and of the hard, selfish woman who had sent her forth to encounter this terrible peril. Every moment while she was borne onward in the storm and darkness seemed an eternity of time to her bewildered mind. She had no idea where she was going, or in what direction. The gloom and darkness hid every object from her view, and she was too terrified to reason clearly. At last they stopped. Jaquelina felt herself lifted down from the mare's back, and borne rapidly in Bowles' arms along what seemed to be a perfectly dark passage-way, long and winding. The wind and rain had ceased to blow in her face, and a damp, earthy smell pervaded the atmosphere. Jaquelina instantly decided that they were in a cave, of which there were several in the neighborhood of her home. Presently her captor paused, and gave a low, peculiar whistle, several times repeated. "Enter!" she heard a deep, musical voice exclaim. Bowles seemed to push aside a thick and heavy curtain. The next moment a blaze of light shone around him as he entered a large apartment, pushing his frightened captive before him. Jaquelina was blinded a moment as she came into the brilliant light from the outer rain and darkness; then the mist cleared; she looked up and found herself standing before the stateliest and most superbly handsome man she had ever beheld in her life. Tall, dark, haughty, the outlaw chief was as kingly in his beauty as Lucifer, "star of the morning," might have looked in the hour of his fall. His glossy curls of jet-black hair were thrown carelessly back from a brow as white and perfect as sculptured marble, his dark and piercing eyes gleamed star-like beneath the black, over-arching brows. His nose was perfect in shape and contour; his rather stern and slightly sad lips were half concealed by a long curling mustache, black, like his hair. Youth, power, and strength spoke in every line of the firm and well-knit figure in its careless yet well-fitting hunting suit of fine, dark-blue flannel. One might have looked for such a face and form at the head of a gallant army, bravely leading his troops to victory or death, but never here in the den of robbers. Jaquelina had one full glance into that darkly handsome face--one look that imprinted it forever on her memory--then the chief caught up a mask that lay upon a table near by, and fitted it hurriedly to his features; the low, deep, musical voice that bade them enter now exclaimed with repressed wrath and menace: "Whom have we here, Bowles? And how have you dared bring a stranger into my presence while I remained unmasked?" Jaquelina saw that Bowles trembled at the stern anger of his chief.