APTER 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.

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