Supposing that the stairway ended there? She stopped,
she looked round, but could see no other door. To see the better she
halted and opened the glass of her lantern. Still she could perceive
nothing, and her heart sank. Yet why did the candle flicker so fiercely?
And why was the air in this deep place so fresh? She walked forward a
pace or two, then noticed suddenly that those footprints of the dead
that she was following disappeared immediately in front of her, and she
stopped.
It was but just in time. One step more and she would have fallen down
the mouth of a deep pit. Once it had been covered with a stone, but this
stone was removed, and had never been replaced. Look! there it stood
against the wall of the chamber. Well was this for Benita, since her
frail strength would not have sufficed to stir that massive block, even
if she had discovered its existence beneath the dust.
Now she saw that down the pit ran another ladderlike stair of stone,
very narrow and precipitous. Without hesitation she began its descent.
Down she went and down--one hundred steps, two hundred steps, two
hundred and seventy-five steps, and all the way wherever the dust had
gathered the man's and the woman's footprints ran before her. There was
a double line of them, one line going down and the other line returning.
Pages:
266
267
268
269
270
271
272
273
274
275
276
277
278
279
280
281
282
283
284
285
286
287
288
289
290