Sicilian, than a light flashed out only fifty paces off.
"Thanks! I will follow the light as long as it leads."
The light at once moved onward, regularly and steadily, like a stage lamp managed by the lime-light operator.
At a hundred paces, a breath in the adventurer's ear made him wince.
"Turn and you die!" came this whisper.
"All right," answered the stranger.
"Speak, and you die!" whispered a voice on the left-hand.
He bowed without speaking.
"But," said a voice seeming to issue from the bowels of the earth, "if you are afraid, go back to the plain, by which it will be clear that you are daunted, and renounce your errand."
The traveler waved his hand to imply that he was going ahead, and ahead he went.