‘So old Harlock says.’
‘It may not be true. What was that?’
‘O, Joan, in God’s name, come away! Did you hear it? It was the horrible laugh again.’
‘Well, I am going to look.’
He clutched at her, but she eluded him, and, slipping into the chamber, bent over the well-rim.
‘Joan! What are you doing? Are you quite mad?’
‘Come and look down, Brion. You can see the water, miles below, like a little dim moon.’
He stood behind her, having put that force upon himself; but he sweated with apprehension. Suddenly she stooped, picked up a fragment of broken stone from the floor, and, before he could stop her, dropped it down the well. There was an interval of silence, and then a distant plop, followed once more by an exacerbated chuckling. And then, as Brion’s hair seemed to rise on his head, the girl turned on him, merrily clapping her hands.
‘Didn’t it gobble like a turkey! I know now what it is: it is the water clucking in some deep-down vent connected with the moat. I saw the bubbles rising when we crossed the tree.’
Was that, indeed, the wonderful explanation? Brion felt as if a flood of sunlight had suddenly broken into the chamber, softening and diluting its terror.