e the horrible darkness "visible;" no object
caught or reflected a single ray of light; all was black, hollow, void
and silent except the faint, deep, distant, roaring as of subterraneous
water!

Capitola pushed the light as far down as she could possibly reach, and
then, yielding to a strange fascination, dropped it into the abyss! It
went down, down, down, down into the darkness, until far below it
glimmered out of sight. Then with an awful shudder Capitola pulled up
and fastened the trap-door, laid down the rug and said her prayers and
went to bed by the firelight, with little Pitapat sleeping on a pallet.
The last thought of Cap, before falling to sleep, was:

"It is awful to go to bed over such a horrible mystery; but I will be a
hero!"

CHAPTER XI.

A MYSTERY AND A STORM AT HURRICANE HALL.

Bid her address her prayers to Heaven!
Learn if she there may be forgiven;
Its mercy may absolve her yet!
But here upon this earth beneath
There is no spot where she and I
Together for an hour could breathe!
--Byron.

Early the next morning Capitola arose, made her toilet and went out to
explore the outer walls of her part of the old house, to discover, if
possible, some external entrance into the unknown cavity under her room.
It was a bright, cheerful, healthy autumnal morning, well adapted to
dispel all clouds of mystery and superstition. Heaps of crimson and
golden-hued leaves, glimmering with hoar frost, lay drifted against the
old walls, and when these were brushed away by the busy hands of the
young girl they revealed nothing but the old moldering foundation; not a
vestige of a cellar-door or window was visible.

Capitola abandoned the fruitless search, and turned to go into the
house. And saying to herself--

"I'll think no more of it! I dare say, after all, it is nothing but a
very dark cellar without window and with a well, and the story of the
murders and of the skeletons is all moonshine," she ran into the
dining-room and took her seat at the breakfast table.

Old Hurricane was just then storming away at his factotum Wool for some
misdemeanor, the nature of which Capitola did not hear, for upon her
appearance he suffered his wrath to subside in a few reverberating, low
thunders, gave his ward a grumphy "Good morning" and sat down to his
breakfast.

After breakfast Old Hurricane took his great-coat and old cocked hat and
storme