aid Annie. She flew to a hedge not far off, and once more
the dog and she hid themselves. The small girl was too excited to notice
either their coming or going; she went on calling anxiously into the
ground:

"Mother Rachel! Mother Rachel!"

Presently a black head and a pair of brawny shoulders appeared, and the
tall woman whose face and figure Annie knew so well stepped up out of the
ground, pushed back the stones into their place, and, taking the gypsy
child into her arms, ran swiftly across the field in the direction of the
tents.

CHAPTER XLVI.

FOR LOVE OF NAN.

Now was Annie's time. "Tiger," she said, for she had heard the men
calling the dog's name, "I want to go right down into that hole in the
ground, and you are to come with me. Don't let us lose a moment, good
dog."

The dog wagged his tail, capered about in front of Annie, and then with a
wonderful shrewdness ran before her to the broken wall, where he stood
with his head bent downward and his eyes fixed on the ground.

Annie pulled and tugged at the loose stones; they were so heavy and
cunningly arranged that she wondered how the little maid, who was smaller
than herself, had managed to remove them. She saw quickly, however, that
they were arranged with a certain leverage, and that the largest stone,
that which formed the real entrance to the underground passage, was
balanced in its place in such a fashion that when she leaned on a certain
portion of it, it moved aside, and allowed plenty of room for her to go
down into the earth.

Very dark and dismal and uninviting did the rude steps, which led nobody
knew where, appear. For one moment Annie hesitated; but the thought of
Nan hidden somewhere in this awful wretchedness nerved her courage.

"Go first, Tiger, please," she said, and the dog scampered down, sniffing
the earth as he went. Annie followed him, but she had scarcely got her
head below the level of the ground before she found herself in total and
absolute darkness; she had unwittingly touched the heavy stone, which had
swung back into its place. She heard Tiger sniffing below, and, calling
him to keep by her side, she went very carefully down and down and down,
until at last she knew by the increase of air that she must have come to
the end of the narrow entrance passage.

She was now able to stand upright, and raising her hand, she tried in
vain to find a roof. The room where she stood, then, must be lofty. She
went forward in