“Are you a child now, Zana?”
“No, I am what you are.”
“Come.”
We descended into the Vega and passed through Granada long after dark. I was very tired and faint, but kept up with my mother, determined to hold firm to my promise. During our whole journey I had not once complained. We left the city and entered a deep, gloomy ravine, lighted up by a host of internal fires, that seemed to burn in the bosom of the hill. Wending along the dusty road, I saw that all the embankment was cut up into holes, from which the lights came, and that these were swarming with human beings.
We walked on, speaking to no one, till my mother stopped before one of these caves of which the door was shut. She paused, and for one instant I felt her tremble, but the emotion was gone in a breath, and pushing the door open, she went in.
A little old woman sat in one end of the cave, rocking to and fro on a wooden stool, beneath the beams of a smoky lamp that stood in a niche over her head. The creature arose as we entered, passed one skeleton hand over her eyes, and muttered “who comes—who dares open my door, when I once shut it for the night?”
“One who fears nothing now, not even you, grandame,” said my mother, advancing firmly up the cave.
The old woman kept her hand above those gleaming eyes, and pored keenly over the haggard face before her.
“Why have you come back?” she said, fiercely.
“To keep my oath, grandame!”