"I—I cannot go alone," said Oliver again.
The other turned his head. "Gaspard!" said he. That was all; but the perfect servant understood. He stepped forward and laid his hand upon Oliver's wrist, and his fingers were like steel wires.
Oliver looked into his face with wide eyes. He saw there that which he had seen the night before. "I—will—go," said he, in a choking voice.
He reached out blindly a hand as cold as death, and trembling as with a palsy. One of the others, he knew not which, thrust the lantern into it. Then he turned mechanically, and, automaton-like, began descending the narrow steps. There were ten or a dozen of them, leading steeply downward, and at the bottom was a small vestibule a few feet square. Oliver looked back, and saw the two faces peering down at him through the square opening above; then he turned again. In front of him was an arched door-way like that through which he had first come. On the wall around the door-way and on the floor was painted a broad, blood-red, unbroken line, with this figure marked at intervals upon it:
The door was opened a crack. Oliver reached out and pushed it, and then noiselessly, even in that dead silence, it swung slowly open upon the darkness within.