een.

Chris looked around her wonderingly. This chamber in the rock was unlike
anything she had ever seen before. The very atmosphere seemed ominous,
like the air of a dungeon.

"And you come here often!" she said again incredulously.

He smiled, and, raising his lantern, pointed to a crevice just above his
head. "That is where I keep my magic."

Chris stood on tiptoe, and peered curiously. He reached up with his free
hand, and drew forward something that gave back dully the flare of the
lamp. She saw a black tin box that looked like a miniature safe.

He looked at her with a smile. "It contains my treasures--my black arts,"
he said, "and my future." He pushed it back again and turned. "Come! we
will find the naughty Cinders."

Chris was on the point of asking eager questions regarding this new
mystery, but before she could begin to utter them a long and piteous
howl--the howl of a lost dog--sent them helter-skelter from her mind.

"Oh, listen!" she cried. "That's Cinders!"

She sprang forward while the miserable sound was still echoing all about
them. "Oh, isn't it dreadful?" she gasped. "Do you think he is hurt?"

"No, no!" Bertrand hastened to reassure her. "He is only afraid. We will
go to him."

He stretched out a hand to her, and she put hers into it as naturally as
a child. Her chin was quivering, and her voice, when she tried to call to
the dog, broke down upon a sob.

"He will never know where we are because of the echoes," she said.

"He is not far," declared the Frenchman consolingly. "See, here is the
passage. They say that it was made by the contrabandists, but it leads to
nowhere; it has been blocked since many years. Do not fall on the stones;
they are very slippery."

A passage, even narrower than the first, led from the cave in which they
had been standing. Bertrand went first, his hand stretched out behind
him, still holding hers.

They had scrambled in this order about a dozen yards when again they
heard Cinders' cry for help--a pathetic yelping considerably farther away
than it had been before. The unlucky wanderer seemed to have lost his
head in the darkness and to be running hither and thither in wild dismay.

"What shall we do?" said Chris in tears. "I've never heard him cry like
that before."

Bertrand paused to listen. "The passage divides near here," he said.
"Courage, little one! We may find him at any moment. Will you then wait
while I search a little farther? I will leave