“Listen!”
“What?”
“Don’t you hear something?”
“No!”
“Oh, listen! There it is again!”
“What, I say?”
“That moaning, gurgling sound, as of some one strangling and groaning!”
“Oh, that is the sound of some subterranean, pent-up stream. I have found such in the caves under these mountains, and I have heard that the foundations of this house communicate with a chain of caverns opening from one into another under the whole breadth of the mountain base, and more than one stream of water must traverse them,” said Philippa.
“Then this is a very dangerous place! This is far down under the deepest foundations of the house, and in this utter darkness we might step into a stream of water, and be swept away and drowned. And oh! of all the gates that lead into the other life, a black water gate must be the most appalling! Do come back, Philippa!”
“I cannot! Something draws me on! But you keep behind me. I will go on before. If I should disappear, either down into a cave or into a subterranean stream, do you turn and go back to the upper world by the way you came.”