But the oubliettes changed her opinion on that. Only a few of them, so the guide said, now remained open to the public. The others, cut down through the solid rock, lay far, far below, damp, almost airless, foul with rats and crawling things.
“And if the abbot or the king wanted you out of the way, you lived for years down there,” said Nancy.
One, not far below the dining hall, was a tiny place, dark, airless, with scarcely room to lie or sit or stand upright.
“Do you mean to say,” asked Cynthia, “that those people up above could dance and sing and ... and enjoy themselves with all those prisoners down below them?”
The group had gone on a way; but Cynthia, lingering behind to explore, had jumped down into the oubliette to see just what kind of a place it really was. She spoke from the floor, some distance below Nancy’s neat brown oxfords.
Nancy shrugged. “That’s the middle ages, darling.”
Cynthia reached up. “Give me a hand, Nancy. I want to get out of here. Ugh ...” once on the floor beside the other, “I hate this place, it’s haunted by all those horrible things they used to do.”
Nancy looked at her queerly. “Not see any more? All right. I’m willing,” and five minutes later they stood once more before the great western entrance looking out over the sands and the town below.
“Ou ... uf!” Cynthia drew a great breath of the free air. “I’d go off my nut if we stayed in there much longer. It’s beautiful, but gosh, it was cruel. Let’s go somewhere and pick daisies and get the smell of those forgetteries out of our noses. C’mon, Nannie.” And grabbing Nancy’s wrist she hauled her headlong down the stairs towards the town below.
As they raced past, Mrs. Brewster was still absorbed in her cabbages and did not even look up. The steps narrowed, they came to the block-long village with its dark, tiny windowed houses where were displayed all the usual tricks to catch the tourist trade.