“That’s him,” said the grana. “Out, every mother’s son of ye, save the Sassenach an’ me. Quick, or the spell will be broken;” and seizing Max tight by the wrist, she pulled him on into the vault.
“Sassenach,” said she, “have ye iver read the Bratheim-hadth, the book of sacred judgment? Ye havn’t, more’s the pity, for from that book
‘The priest, the prince, the bard, the man of art,
An’ you, too, in this vault might larn yer part.’
Howsomiver, as yer ignorant of mystheries, ye must mind what I tell ye, an’ the first white thing ye sees on the ground grab it up quick, afore the evil wan hides it agin. Whisht—”
She might well say “whisht,” for nearer and nearer, from the depths of the vault, came the clanking chain, and the hollow voice, crying, “My head, my head! ullagone, ullagone!”
Max, not knowing whether he was on his head or his heels, allowed himself to be dragged on by the grana. The faint blue light was becoming fainter and fainter; the wailing “ullagone” was drawing nearer and nearer, when his foot stumbled against something; he stooped to look at it—it was white; he took it up—it was a skull! Max fainted.
When he returned to consciousness, he found himself in a vault indeed, but neither skulls nor groans, nor ghastly blue lights shed their weird influence round him, but a cheerful glow, as of many candles, lighted up the place; and as he looked round he saw, not headless Con, but more than one hogshead, for the vault was, in fact, a spacious cellar, contrived with much care by Master Dennis Connor’s grandfather, for the accommodation of those choice wines from Burgundy and elsewhere, which he had “loved, not wisely, but too well.”