Page:A M Williamson - The Motor Maid.djvu/182

166 Six, seven steps, and then—crash! down I came on my hands and knees.

Oh, how it hurt! And how it made my head ring! Fireworks went off before my eyes, and I felt stupid, inclined to lie still. But suddenly the idea flashed into my brain, like lightning darting among dark clouds, that the old woman had made me do this thing on purpose. She had played me a trick—and if she had, she must have some bad reason for doing it. Those two sons of hers! I scrambled up, shocked and jarred by the fall, my hands and knees smarting as if they were skinned.

"I've fallen down," I cried. "Do you hear?"

No answer.

I called again. It was as still as a grave up above. It seemed to me that it could not be so unnaturally, so inhumanly still, if there were a living, breathing creature there. I was sure now that the horrible old thing had known what would happen, had wanted it to happen, and had gone hobbling away to fetch her wicked gipsy sons. How she had looked at my poor little purse! How she had looked at Pamela's watch!

I saw now how it was that I had been so stupid. The dim light from above had lain on the last step and made it appear as if the floor were near; but there was a gap between the stairway and the bottom of the cellar. The lower steps had been hewn away—perhaps in a quest for the ever-elusive treasure. Maybe a crack had appeared, and people, always searching, had suspected a secret opening and tried to find it. Anyway, there was the gap, and there was a rough pile of broken stone