A hundred fears possessed Gaston's soul as the strange transit through the air was being accomplished -- a transit so strange that he felt as though he must surely be dreaming. But there was only one thing to be done -- to persevere in the quest, and trust to the Holy Saints and the loving mercy of Blessed Mary's Son to grant him success in this his endeavour.
Up, up into the darkness of the vaulted roof he passed, and then a yawning hole above their heads, which looked too small to admit the passage of the slab upon which they stood, swallowed them up, and they found themselves passing upwards through a shaft which only just admitted the block upon which they stood. Up and up they went, and now the creaking sound grew louder, and the motion grew perceptibly slower. They were no longer in a narrow shaft; a black space opened before their eyes. The motion ceased altogether with a grinding sensation and a jerk, and out of the darkness of a wider space, pitchy dark to their eyes, came the sound of a familiar voice.
"Gaston -- Brother!"
Gaston sprang forward into the darkness, heedless of all but the sound of that voice. The next moment he was clasping his brother in his arms, his own emotion so great that he dared not trust his voice to speak; whilst Raymond, holding him fast in a passionate clasp, whispered in his ear a breathless question.
"Thou too a prisoner in this terrible place, my Gaston? O brother -- my brother -- I trusted that I might have died for us both!"
"A prisoner? nay, Raymond, no prisoner; but as thy rescuer I come. What, believest thou not? Then shalt thou soon see with thine own eyes.
"But let me look first upon thy face. I would see what these miscreants have done to thee. Thou feelest more like a creature of skin and bone than one of sturdy English flesh and blood.
"The light, Roger!
"Ay, truly, Roger is here with me. It is to him in part we owe it that we are here this night. Raymond, Raymond, thou art sorely changed! Thou lookest more spirit-like than ever! Thou hast scarce strength to stand alone! What have they done to thee, my brother?"
But Raymond could scarce find strength to answer. The revulsion of feeling was too much for him. When he had heard that terrible sound, and had seen the slab in the floor sink out of sight, he had sprung from his bed of straw, ready to face his cruel foes when they came for him, yet knowing but too well what was in store for him when he was carried down below, as he had been once before. Then when, instead of the cruel mocking countenance of Peter Sanghurst, he had seen the noble, loving face of his brother, and had believed that he, too, had fallen into the power of their deadly foes, it had seemed to him as though a bitterness greater than that of death had fallen upon him, and the rebound of feeling when Gaston had declared himself had been so great, that the whole place swam before his eyes, and the floor seemed to reel beneath his feet.