ll
into the bargain," continued the ruffian, as he strode onward to a place
where several horses were tied.

He selected the strongest of the group, mounted and lifted the helpless
form of the lady into a seat before him, and set off at full speed,
clattering through the rugged mountain pass with a recklessness of life
and limb, that at another time would have frightened his companion half
out of her senses.

But now, in her despair of life, there was even a hope in this mad
career--the hope of a sudden death.

But the gigantic ruffian knew himself, his horse, and his road, and so
he carried his victim through that fearful pass in perfect safety.

They reached a deep, narrow, secluded valley, in the midst of which
stood an old red sandstone house, closely surrounded by trees, and only
dimly to be seen in the clouded night sky.

Here the robber rider slackened his pace.

The deep silence that prevailed, the thick growth of leafless weeds
and briars through which their horse had to wade, all showed that this
house had been long uninhabited and the grounds long uncultivated.

Yet there was some one on guard; for when Moloch rode up to the door and
dismounted, and holding Sybil tightly clasped in his left arm, rapped
three times three, with his right hand, the door was cautiously opened
by a decrepit old man, who held a lighted taper in his withered fingers.

"Ho, Pluto! who is here?" inquired Moloch, striding into the hall, and
bearing Sybil in his arms.

"No one, sir, but the girls and the woman; and they have just come,"
answered the old man.

"No one but the girls and the woman! and they have just come! And no
fire made, and no supper ready? And this h--ll of an old house colder
and damper than the cavern! Won't the captain be leaping mad, that's
all! Come, bestir yourself, bestir yourself, and make a fire first of
all. This lady is as cold as death! Where is Iska?"

"In this room, sir," answered the old man, pushing open an old
worm-eaten door that admitted them into a large old-fashioned
oak-pannelled parlor, with a wide fireplace and a high corner cupboard,
but without other furniture.

On the hearth knelt Gentiliska, trying to coax a little smouldering fire
of green wood into a blaze.

"What the d----l is the use of puffing away at that? You'd just as well
try to set fire to a wet sponge," impatiently exclaimed Moloch.

And he went to one of the windows, wrenched off a dry mouldering
shutter, broke