But the preparations of Bunce had been foreseen and provided for by those most deeply interested in his progress; and scarcely had the worthy tradesman effected his entrance fairly into the forbidden territory, when he felt himself grappled from behind.  He struggled with an energy, due as much to the sudden terror as to any exercise of the free will; but he struggled in vain.  The arms that were fastened about his own bound them down with a grasp of steel; and after a few moments of desperate effort, accompanied with one or two exclamations, half-surprise, half-expostulation, of “Hello, friend, what do you mean?” and “I say, now, friend, you’d better have done—­” the struggle ceased, and he lay supine in the hold of the unseen persons who had secured him.

These persons he could not then discern; the passage was cavernously dark, and had evidently been as much the work of nature as of art.  A handkerchief was fastened about his eyes, and he felt himself carried on the shoulders of those who made nothing of the burden.  After the progress of several minutes, in which the anxiety natural to his situation led Bunce into frequent exclamations and entreaties, he was set down, the bandage was removed from his eyes, and he was once more permitted their free exercise.

To his great wonder, however, nothing but women, of all sizes and ages, met his sight.  In vain did he look around for the men who brought him.  They were no longer to be seen, and so silent had been their passage out, that the unfortunate pedler was compelled to satisfy himself with the belief that persons of the gentler sex had been in truth his captors.

Had he, indeed, given up the struggle so easily?  The thought was mortifying enough; and yet, when he looked around him, he grew more satisfied with his own efforts at resistance.  He had never seen such strongly-built women in his life:  scarcely one of them but could easily have overthrown him, without stratagem, in single combat.  The faces of many of them were familiar to him; but where had he seen them before?  His memory failed him utterly, and he gave himself up to his bewilderment.

He looked around, and the scene was well calculated to affect a nervous mind.  It was a fit scene for the painter of the supernatural.  The small apartment in which they were, was formed in great part from the natural rock; where a fissure presented itself, a huge pine-tree, overthrown so as to fill the vacuity, completed what nature had left undone; and, bating the one or two rude cavities left here and there in the sides—­themselves so covered as to lie hidden from all without—­there was all the compactness of a regularly-constructed dwelling.  A single and small lamp, pendent from a beam that hung over the room, gave a feeble light, which, taken in connection with that borrowed from without, served only to make visible the dark indistinct of the place.  With something dramatic in their taste, the old women