There were two main cellars, connected by a labyrinth of narrow, vaulted passages with smaller ones. Many of these passages, however, were blind alleys, terminating in stout brick walls. Some were solid and five feet thick; others hollow, with a good brick crust on either side. In these recesses, old Hungarian wine was bricked up till some great family event justified its being drunk. In the recesses which were empty at the beginning of the war, Ian bricked up his food, taking out the wine from others and storing it in the large cellars.
Once at the bottom of the narrow steps the two had but a few yards to the part Father Constantine had fitted up as an underground chapel. To screen it off he had put a curtain across the narrow passage. The wall of a recess still supported the little altar. They hid behind the curtain. They could hear voices.
"They are in the big cellar," whispered the Countess.
"Now Jew, where is this grain? Be quick." It was the subaltern's voice.
"Oh, Excellency," began Szmul, and his voice was of honey. The Prussian cut him short.
"No nonsense--speak out."
"I was down here one day, when they all thought I had gone out for air, and I heard the Count talking to the silly old priest who----"
"Go on!"
"And they were in the chapel, which they have fitted up because they stood in deadly fear of the Prussian shells. And they wondered between themselves if it would not be better to break into the cellar stores in the lower part on account of the damp and use that store as rations for the peasants in the other village, not the village belonging to the Count but the peasants' village, for there are----"
There was a thud, as of hard matter against soft, and then a shrill Hebrew squeal.