Page:Maria Felicia.pdf/246

 hand in Andrew’s no longer trembled, but with a passionate pressure at every lengthy pause urged him onward.

Moving cautiously into the vestibule, whose height the harper at his first visit had surveyed with so much pleasure, they stopped at one of the pillars. Andrew, who moved about in the darkness with as much certainty as if the sun were shining, pushed aside a heavy stone. He then opened a door that led to a narrow space, from which a colder breeze than that outside swept over them. The cold current came from the ground, as the harper learned when Andrew carefully barred the entrance behind him and lighted a lantern, which doubtless had served many generations of his race on such expeditions. He saw before him a flight of stairs, as steep as a ladder, leading into a dark abyss.

Boldly Andrew started into the narrow shaft, and the harper followed him. Dead air as well as dead silence met them there; the echo of the mad elements outside did not penetrate those dizzy depths.