Page:In Maremma, by Ouida (vol 1).djvu/139

 away from about the entrance, and the light from the cloudless skies above shone down steadily. She pushed with her hands against the stone with the innocent unreasoning curiosity of a child. There was no lock nor bolt upon the door, nor were there any hinges. It would turn, if it turned at all, in sockets cut in the stone; and turn at the last it did, slowly opening as though some unwilling hand were behind it. She thrust it backwarder, wider and wider, until she entered it, and stood on the threshold of a narrow chamber hewn in the dark grey rock; on either side couched a stone lion. She entered; timid for the first time in her bold brief life.

Around the walls ran benches of stone; on them stood vases and jars in black ware, and others in white painted pottery, bronze lamps, and amber ornaments, and strange little vessels whose like she had never seen. There was nothing else. An archway, however, in the end wall showed beyond another and larger chamber. Curiosity and wonder mastering fear, the child passed through the first room and entered the second.

On its threshold she paused entranced and appalled.