she would go, and
she saw her slip through an almost invisible opening in the side of the
rock. Then Sybil turned again to her strange entertainer, and said:

"There is something more I wish to know, if you do not mind telling me.
Why were we drugged with opium that night?"

"Ha! ha! ha! We had some goods to remove from the vault. You were all in
our way. We were obliged either to kill you or to drug you. So we
drugged you," laughed the girl.

"And nearly killed us, as well."

"Yes; we had to make sure of your taking enough to put you to sleep, so
I poured the laudanum into your coffee-pot pretty freely, I tell you."

At this moment the bloodless phantom appeared again, and in the same
thin, reed-like voice that sounded so far away, she announced that
breakfast was ready.

"Come, then; I know you must need nourishment," said Sybil's wild
hostess, rising to lead the way.

And now Sybil saw how it was that the pale girl had slipped through the
almost invisible aperture, like a spirit vanishing through a solid wall;
for the rocky partitions of this natural underground palace overlapped
each other, leaving a passage of about one foot in width and three feet
in length between the walls.

Through this they passed into a smaller cavern, which, like the larger
one, had its roof and walls incrusted with pearly spars and hung with
sparkling stalactites, and its floor covered with living moss.

This cavern was not only beautiful, but comfortable. A large charcoal
furnace that stood in the middle of the floor agreeably warmed the
place, while the appetizing odor of hot coffee, broiled birds, and
buckwheat cakes filled the air.

But the furniture of the place was the most incongruous and amazing that
could be imagined. A wooden table of the rudest workmanship stood near
the furnace, but it was covered with a white damask table-cloth of the
finest description, and adorned with a service of the purest silver
plate. With this elegant and costly array was intermingled crockery-ware
of the coarsest pattern. Around the table were placed two three-legged
stools of the roughest manufacture, and one piano chair of the most
finished workmanship, of carved rosewood and cut velvet.

Waiting on this table stood the "damp girl" mentioned before, and also a
very small, dark, withered old woman, in a black gown, with a red
handkerchief tied over her head and under her chin.

"Come, Mrs. Berners, you are my guest, and I will give you t