Where were they going? Under the foundations of the castle? Under the bed of the sea? To the very center of the earth? Would they never stop descending?
“Oh, what a fool I was to come here at midnight. Shall I ever get out of this alive? Oh, no—never. Oh, what a horrible fate. Will they ever find me or my body? Oh, no—never. How could they? Oh, my dear mother! Oh, my dear father! What ever will you think has become of me—your wilful Wynnette? My whole arm is freezing from the clasp of that icy hand around my wrist. What is it going to do with me? But it is only a dream. I know it is only a dream. A cruel, deadly nightmare. Oh, if I could only scream. If I could only struggle and wake up. But I shall die in my sleep here, and they will find me dead in the morning. Oh, Lord, forgive my sins and save my soul. What was that?”
Suddenly the silence of that utter darkness was broken by a sound that became a noise, a roar, a deafening thunder, and Wynnette, in the anguish of her utter terror and helplessness, heard and knew the thunder of the sea against the rocks. But the air was growing close, fetid, sulphurous, suffocating.
“It is no nightmare. I hear the sea. It is breaking in mighty waves over my head. Ah, my limbs are numb—my breath is gone—my brain is going. Oh, if I could only cry out once. Mother! Mother!”
Then the darkness and the coldness as of death closed in, wrapped around, and settled down upon her with the weight of the grave.
And for the time being Wynnette was dead and buried to all life, sense and consciousness.
When Wynnette breathed again and opened her eyes she could not at once recover her consciousness. The shock and strain upon her nervous system had been too severe and protracted. She heard and saw as one half asleep. She heard the awful reverberations of the thunder of the sea. She saw around her blackness of darkness, relieved just in one spot, a few yards distant from where she lay, by a small fire on the ground, that smoldered in the foul air, and cast a lurid light but a few feet around, and fell upon the face and form of a crouching figure squatted near it.
It was a Rembrandt picture.
Wynnette watched it in weak, dull, stupid despair. Whether it was man, woman, or even human being, she neither knew, nor cared, nor questioned. Nor could any one else, even in the full possession of their senses, have, at sight, classified the strange figure squatted by the low fire in the subterranean abyss.
Wynnette was too stunned, dazed and weakened even to fear it.