The girl paused, with a light foot on the stairway.
“You hear it?” she said. “That is where the shadows sleep at mid-day. But when the sun loses his hold of the white ladder he has climbed by, they come out and grow and grow in joy to see him fall. Then all night they can fill the house, for they are brave and big.”
“What is it?” said the baronet. “A vault?”
She moved back a step, and stamped with her slender foot.
“They call it ‘the Priests’ Hole,’” she said. “Perhaps they hid there and became shadows in time. You may open it if you will. It is too heavy for me.”
He saw a ring in the boards, and tugged at it. A square of flooring yielded and came slowly up, screeching like the mandrake. Beneath was revealed a stone-lined chamber, some seven feet in depth and four in width, into which a weak gush of light found passage from some distant grating.
A dismal hiding-place, in all truth, where, it seemed, a man might perish forgotten in the racket of the times that gave it existence.
“It was hard to find once,” said Darda. “Hidden and tucked away in the hollow of the wall, ’tis said. Then the shadows must have been short and the world always day.”
“A weary thing for men, my lass. Lead on.”
He let the flap fall into place with a slam of thunder, and followed the girl up the stairs. These led to the servants’ quarter, where were situated the two little sleeping-places of Dennis and his sister.