It was black-dark inside, not white-dark as it was out; for the one narrow window on this ground floor was shuttered. Joey longed for an electric torch. She stumbled on a cautious step or two; then, growing bolder, walked on three or four more, with hands outstretched. Her hands came into contact with a narrow shelf, and on it, joy! she felt a match-box. Joey struck a match, feeling as though all her troubles were over.
The flash gave her a rough notion of grey walls and an iron ladder running up almost perpendicularly to the right of her, and it showed something else as well—a lantern that stood upon the same shelf where she had found the matches. Joey seized upon it, as a shipwrecked mariner might on a spar, and lit it. Holding it in her hand, she felt strong enough to face anything; it was the darkness which had been so frightening.
Holding the lantern on high she set out to explore her refuge; after all, for whatever reason, it was rather exciting to find oneself in the mysterious Round Tower at last.
The floor above was so high that the rays of her lantern could not reach it, but she was sure there was another floor because of the ladder, which obviously must lead somewhere. Joey thought she would go up it presently and see for herself, but at present the ground floor of the tower presented attractions. It was strewn with a quantity of loose stones and débris of all kinds, except in one place—one can hardly say corner in a round tower—where it would seem to have been swept smooth. Joey, having wandered round the loose-jointed grey walls, examining them with interest, came to the place where the débris was comparatively scanty, and held her lantern down to light the place.
A voice came up to her from below the floor, a rather thin, peevish voice that sounded exceedingly tired, and had a curious accent.
"You are at least two hours earlier than you said you would be; how can you then expect me to be ready?"
Joey quite jumped—the voice was so entirely unexpected. Then she realised that she must be taken for somebody else.
"I can't be anyone you expected two hours later, because I didn't know myself about walking home and this old fog," she said. "Do tell me, are you down a trap-door, or what?"
A square of floor lifted with some difficulty, and a head appeared—the head of a pale, unhealthy-looking young man, with large, startled, blue eyes.
"I say, I hope I didn't frighten you coming in like this," Joey said politely. "But the fog—the sea-roke, I think they call it, is so beastly, and I couldn't find my way back."