"If you go down the steps, you will find a door to which I shall give you the key. Enter and you will be in an empty room, the walls of which are hung with worn tapestries taken from the inn. On one side of the room you will see a tapestried panel bearing the image of St. George and the dragon. Behind the panel is a concealed door, seemingly a part of the wall, but if you will allow the tapestry to hang and will press the eye of the dragon, the door will open and you may find—your St. George."
Frances caught Betty in her arms, crying, "Let me go to him at once, at once!"
Betty and Frances went downstairs, and after waiting a minute or two, Betty said, "Now there is no one in the courtyard, and you may cross unseen."
Frances hastened across the courtyard and down the cellar steps. On reaching the outer door of which Betty had spoken, she halted in fear. But she dared not retreat, so inserting the key, she entered.
In the dim light of the room the images of faded knights, angels, saints, and dragons seemed to stand like a small army of ghosts ready to deny her passage. But soon she discovered the figure of St. George, pressed the eye of the dragon, lifted the tapestry, and entered the room of a printing shop.
While Frances had been standing in hesitation before the figure of the saint, she had heard with some alarm a rumbling noise in the room she was about to enter. The rumbling is destined, in my opinion, to go down the line of the ages, an instrument of untold good to mankind, for it was the rumbling of a printing-press.
Standing at the press, lifting and lowering it by means of a foot lever, and feeding it with broad strips of paper, stood a man in his shirt-sleeves. At an inclined desk, a type-case, stood another man setting type, close beside the press. He, also, was in his shirt-sleeves and was much older and stouter than the man at the press.
The rumbling had drowned the slight noise occasioned by the opening of the door, so that Frances stood waiting a full minute before she was observed. The stout man at the type-case was the first to see her, and when he turned, she asked, trembling:—
"I am seeking Master Hamilton. Shall I find him here?"
The man at the press then turned quickly to Frances. His face was smooth shaven, but was almost covered with printers' ink, giving him the appearance of a blackamoor. The stout man at the type-case, failing to respond, and the other being apparently too surprised to speak, Frances went to the blackamoor and, standing beside the press, was about to repeat her inquiry.