"There is probably a thunderstorm," answered Malipieri. "We can hear nothing down here."
"If I had gone down again, I should have been drowned," Toto said, shaking his head. "Do you hear? Half the water from the courtyard must be running down there!"
The sound of the falling stream increased to a hollow roar.
"Do you think the water can rise in the shaft?" asked Malipieri.
"Not unless the river rises and backs into it," replied Toto. "The drain is large below."
"That cannot be 'lost water,' can it?"
"No. That is impossible."
"Put the boards in their place again," Malipieri said. "It is growing late."
It was done in a few moments, but now the dismal roar of the water came up very distinctly through the covering. Malipieri had been in many excavations, and in mines, too, but did not remember that he had ever felt so strongly the vague sense of apprehension that filled him now. There is something especially gloomy and mysterious about the noise of unexplained water heard at a great depth under the earth and coming out of darkness. Even the rough men with him felt that.
"It is bad to hear," observed Masin, putting one more stone upon the boards, as if the weight could keep the sound down.