caps in the air, huzzaed, and as the wild sound died away, broke into brutal laughter.

Julia became instantly silent as death. Her principal conductor dismounting, lifted her from the horse, and taking a firm grasp of her arm, dragged her up the mound. It seemed formed of some loose material, which gave way under her feet, and brought her to her knees more than once.

Arrived at the top, Julia perceived that she stood on the edge of a circular opening or pit, which, from the dark vacuum that met the eye, appeared bottomless. She shrunk back, and clung, as if for protection, even to the ruffian who had led her to its verge.

At this moment, a huge dark object passed through the air over their heads with a swinging motion, and then descended over the mouth of the pit. It was a black formless machine, hollow within, and suspended from above by chains. The stranger lifted Julia

from her feet, placed her in it, then stepped in himself, and it instantly began to descend. He stood firmly and still held her arm, that, as she too was obliged to stand, she might not by the motion lose her balance. With an involuntary impulse of terror, she looked over the side of the machine; all below was darkness. With a despairing gaze she raised her eyes, and fixed them on the round aperture above. It appeared to lessen every moment, while the voices of those they had left on the brink grew fainter and fainter. They continued descending, and at length, a confused hum arose from below. They descended still, and gradually, the mingled din increased both in loudness and distinctness, till the clanking of chains and strokes of hammers could be distinguished, through shrieks, yells, and coarse wild laughter.

Still they descended, and now, in his usual voice of thunder, Julia's companion uttered

CHAPTER XXV.

"More fire than lustre had his eye, his form
Less grace than grandeur."

Why am I summoned here, to mix with thine

My secret words, within the horrid cave

Of Moma?"

NEAR one of the entrances to

haven, the

chimneys and slating of a miserable looking row of houses, appear quite at the feet of the traveller; consequently, on a level with the road which runs along the brow of the hill, in the side of which the backs of the houses are sunk, while their faces front the valley.

About an hour after the conclusion of the events related in our last chapter, but still before day-break, a horseman approached at a rapid pace along the road just described.

He turned the animal suddenly down a narrow rugged abrupt descent, which brought him immediately in front of the said row of houses.

The rider stopped, and, loosing his foot

from the stirrup at the side nearest the miserable dwelling, close to which his horse now stood, kicked the door. It opened, and a figure appeared, the outlines of which, as shewn by the light from behind, were easily to be recognised, as those of the female equestrian. From the length of time, however, which has elapsed, it may not be quite so easy to trace in her that bold strolling thief and beggar, whom we have seen in the very first chapter of this history, treat poor Edmund so cruelly. Yet she is the same individual. By origin she was, what in Cumberland is called, a bottom lass; the most opprobrious of terms, meaning one of those creatures, found to swarm in that region of darkness, denominated, in the country of which we speak, "the bottom." "the bottom."

Creatures

who, if they can claim a mother for the first few weeks after their birth, rarely can a father.

We are not aware that the profligate being whose history we are thus tracing back, was ever christened; yet, in some way or other, she had obtained the appellation of Jin of the Gins.

Jin, notwithstanding her lack of noble birth, happened to possess, in extreme youth, some natural beauty; and by that circumstance was promoted, at the early age of seventeen, to the rank of nominal wife to a travelling tinker. With him, for a few years, she travelled, begged, pilfered, and drank.

During this period it was that Edmund had, for the sake of his fine clothes, become her prey. Shortly after having abandoned him, she was caught in the act of achieving a more than usually daring robbery, for which she must have been hung, had she not escaped