“I’ll soon get you up,” he returned cheerily, and began to descend.
“Oh, papa!” she cried, “don’t come a step nearer. If you should slip, we should go to the bottom of the rock together. Indeed, indeed, there is great danger! Do run for Malcolm.”
Thoroughly alarmed, yet mastering the signs of his fear, he enjoined her to keep perfectly still while he was gone, and hurried to the little window. Thence he shouted to the men below, but in vain, for the wind prevented his voice from reaching them. He rushed from the vaults, and began to descend at the first practicable spot he could find, shouting as he went.
The sound of his voice cheered Florimel a little, as she lay forsaken in her misery. Her whole effort now was to keep herself from fainting, and for this end, to abstract her mind from the terrors of her situation: in this she was aided by a new shock, which, had her position been a less critical one, would itself have caused her a deadly dismay. A curious little sound came to her, apparently from somewhere in the dusky chamber in which her head lay. She fancied it made by some little animal, and thought of the wild cats and otters of which Malcolm had spoken as haunting the caves; but, while the new fear mitigated the former, the greater fear subdued the less. It came a little louder, then again a little louder, growing like a hurried whisper, but without seeming to approach her. Louder still it grew, and yet was but an inarticulate whispering. Then it began to divide into some resemblance of articulate sounds. Presently, to her utter astonishment, she heard herself called by name.
“Lady Florimel! Lady Florimel!” said the sound plainly enough.
“Who’s there?” she faltered, with her heart in her throat, hardly knowing whether she spoke or not.
“There’s nobody here,” answered the voice. “I’m in my own bedroom at home, where your dog killed mine.”
It was the voice of Mrs Catanach, but both words and tone were almost English.
Anger, and the sense of a human presence, although an evil one, restored Lady Florimel’s speech.
“How dare you talk such nonsense?” she said.