LITMIR.BIZ

      Lights flashed about the building, and various room doors opened; voices called one to the other. There was an universal stir and commotion among the inhabitants.

      "Did you hear a scream, Harry?" asked a young man, half-dressed, as he walked into the chamber of another about his own age.

      "I did—where was it?"

      "God knows. I dressed myself directly."

      "All is still now."

      "Yes; but unless I was dreaming there was a scream."

      "We could not both dream there was. Where did you think it came from?"

      "It burst so suddenly upon my ears that I cannot say."

      There was a tap now at the door of the room where these young men were, and a female voice said—

      "For God's sake, get up!"

      "We are up," said both the young men, appearing.

      "Did you hear anything?"

      "Yes, a scream."

      "Oh, search the house—search the house; where did it come from—can you tell?"

      "Indeed we cannot, mother."

      Another person now joined the party. He was a man of middle age, and, as he came up to them, he said—

      "Good God! what is the matter?"

      Scarcely had the words passed his lips, than such a rapid succession of shrieks came upon their ears, that they felt absolutely stunned by them. The elderly lady, whom one of the young men had called mother, fainted, and would have fallen to the floor of the corridor in which they all stood, had she not been promptly supported by the last comer, who himself staggered, as those piercing cries came upon the night air. He, however, was the first to recover, for the young men seemed paralysed.

      "Henry," he cried, "for God's sake support your mother. Can you doubt that these cries come from Flora's room?"

      The young man mechanically supported his mother, and then the man who had just spoken darted back to his own bed-room, from whence he returned in a moment with a pair of pistols, and shouting—

      "Follow me, who can!" he bounded across the corridor in the direction of the antique apartment, from whence the cries proceeded, but which were now hushed.

      That house was built for strength, and the doors were all of oak, and of considerable thickness. Unhappily, they had fastenings within, so that when the man reached the chamber of her who so much required help, he was helpless, for the door was fast.

      "Flora! Flora!" he cried; "Flora, speak!"

      All was still.

      "Good God!" he added; "we must force the door."

      "I hear a strange noise within," said the young man, who trembled violently.

      "And so do I. What does it sound like?"

      "I scarcely know; but it nearest resembles some animal eating, or sucking some liquid."

      "What on earth can it be? Have you no weapon that will force the door? I shall go mad if I am kept here."

      "I have," said the young man. "Wait here a moment."

      He ran down the staircase, and presently returned with a small, but powerful, iron crow-bar.

      "This will do," he said.

      "It will, it will.—Give it to me."

      "Has she not spoken?"

      "Not a word. My mind misgives me that something very dreadful must have happened to her."

      "And that odd noise!"

      "Still goes on. Somehow, it curdles the very blood in my veins to hear it."

      The man took the crow-bar, and with some difficulty succeeded in introducing it between the door and the side of the wall—still it required great strength to move it, but it did move, with a harsh, crackling sound.

      "Push it!" cried he who was using the bar, "push the door at the same time."

      The younger man did so. For a few moments the massive door resisted. Then, suddenly, something gave way with a loud snap—it was a part of the lock—and the door at once swung wide open.

      How true it is that we measure time by the events which happen within a given space of it, rather than by its actual duration.

      To those who were engaged in forcing open the door of the antique chamber, where slept the young girl whom they named Flora, each moment was swelled into an hour of agony; but, in reality, from the first moment of the alarm to that when the loud cracking noise heralded the destruction of the fastenings of the door, there had elapsed but very few minutes indeed.

      "It opens—it opens," cried the young man.

      "Another moment," said the stranger, as he still plied the crowbar—"another moment, and we shall have free ingress to the chamber. Be patient."

      This stranger's name was Marchdale; and even as he spoke, he succeeded in throwing the massive door wide open, and clearing the passage to the chamber.

      To rush in with a light in his hand was the work of a moment to the young man named Henry; but the very rapid progress he made into the apartment prevented him from observing accurately what it contained, for the wind that came in from the open window caught the flame of the candle, and although it did not actually extinguish it, it blew it so much on one side, that it was comparatively useless as a light.

      "Flora—Flora!" he cried.

      Then with a sudden bound something dashed from off the bed. The concussion against him was so sudden and so utterly unexpected, as well as so tremendously violent, that he was thrown down, and, in his fall, the light was fairly extinguished.

      All was darkness, save a dull, reddish kind of light that now and then, from the nearly consumed mill in the immediate vicinity, came into the room. But by that light, dim, uncertain, and flickering as it was, some one was seen to make for the window.

      Henry, although nearly stunned by his fall, saw a figure, gigantic in height, which nearly

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