“By all means, but I should prefer to do so as I go. Fool, is there any hiding place in this church, or must we stop here to have our throats cut?”
Then the sacristan, with white lips and knocking knees, whispered:
“Follow me, all of you. Stay, blow out the lights.”
So the candles were extinguished, and in the darkness they grasped each other’s hands and were led by the verger whither they knew not. Across the wide spaces of the empty church they crawled, its echoing silence contrasting strangely with the muffled roar of angry voices without and the dull sound of battering on the doors. One of their number, the fat Abbe Dominic, became separated from them in the gloom, and wandered away down an arm of the vast transept, whence they could hear him calling to them. The sacristan called back, but Ramiro fiercely bade him to be silent, adding:
“Are we all to be snared for the sake of one priest?”
So they went on, till presently in that great place his shouts grew fainter, and were lost in the roar of the multitude without.
“Here is the spot,” muttered the sacristan, after feeling the floor with his hands, and by a dim ray of moonlight which just then pierced the windows of the choir, Adrian saw that there was a hole in the pavement before him.
“Descend, there are steps,” said their guide. “I will shut the stone,” and one by one they passed down six or seven narrow steps into some darksome place.
“Where are we?” asked a priest of the verger, when he had pulled the stone close and joined them.
“In the family vault of the noble Count van Valkenburg, whom your reverence buried three days ago. Fortunately the masons have not yet come to cement down the stone. If your Excellencies find it close, you can get air by standing upon the coffin of the noble Count.”