For a moment we paused on the height, looking downward into the thick gloom; then Beltrami descended the steps slowly, tossing the flaring torch up and down, to and fro, in order to illuminate the darkness, and as I followed him the smoke, with its pungent odour, streamed backward towards my face. A bat, startled by the glare, flew round our heads with a rapid sweep of its noiseless wings, then vanished through the half-open door into the night beyond, like some escaping spectre of the tomb.
At last we reached the floor of the vault, which was paved with broad black marble slabs, so highly polished that the crimson blaze of the torch was reflected therein. All around in niches were innumerable coffins, some covered with tattered velvet palls, while others stood out grim and bare in their leaden hideousness, the coverings having long since mouldered away. In the gloom, there every no w and then could be perceived the glimmer of some white figure sculptured on the massive wall, the glitter of tarnished silver ornaments, and the outlines of painted devices, while the smoky torch with its angry flame cast strange gleams upon these mouldy splendours of the dead.
In the centre, on a square stone hidden by a rich pall of black velvet, embroidered with armorial devices in silver braid, rested the gorgeous coffin of the last Morone, which I presume was to remain there until the death of the Contessa, when it would be removed to its already-prepared niche to make way for the sole survivor of the proud race.
The Marchesa at once advanced to the coffin, and waving the torch above it, examined the decorations closely. True to his determination he was smoking, and it gave me an unpleasant shock to see this cloaked figure behaving so disrespectfully in the solemn presence of the dead.
"Bene!" he said at length in a satisfied tone, "there is one thing certain. It is not in the coffin!"
"How do you know that, Beltrami?"
"Because the lid is screwed down, and the Contessa, who as you say was alone, could not have taken that off. Besides, even if she did, Madame Morone knows the value of time too well to waste it in replacing the lid. No, it is not in the coffin, but it's somewhere about the coffin."
"What makes you think so, Luigi?"
"All this elaborate silver work! There's too much of it to be there without some reason. Caro, Hugo, just hold the torch and I will make an examination."
I took the torch in silence and watched his actions with great curiosity. The coffin, as he said, was most elaborately adorned with silver work representing the arms of the Morone family, interspersed with wreaths of flowers and tangled seaweed. On the lid was a broad silver plate similarly adorned, setting forth the name, titles, and date of death of the deceased, and round the oblong sides of this shell ran another broad wreath of flowers, shells, crests, and seaweeds, designed in the same style as the decorations on the lid. Beltrami, who was a clever prestidigitateur and could perform the most marvellous tricks with cards, had a wonderfully delicate sense of touch, and trusting to this more than to his eyes he ran his slender fingers rapidly over the raised silver ornaments on the lid of the coffin.