Just then the horses stopped, and the driver turned to the tourists, saying a few words in a low tone of voice and pointing with his finger to a recess in the rock. They had reached their journey’s end. All was silent. Ethel, Helia, and Suzanne descended from the vehicle, and Will and Phil leaped from their horses.
The spot was a wild one. Before them the whole country lay outstretched. Behind them mountains were heaped together. The wind blew, tossing the horses’ manes; and the great passing clouds seemed to issue forth from the mountain.
The visitors took a few steps forward and saw a black hole. It was the cavern. A rough statue of Morgana, virgin and martyr, was carved in the living rock. There were heaps of votive offerings around it—little figures of children and birds, veils and women’s girdles, daggers and flowers and fruits, and the red cake which betrothed ones break before marriage. A peasant woman at her prayers, prostrate on the rock at the saint’s feet, was praying with the energy of despair, and calling for vengeance.
The visitors kept on advancing, half regretting that they had come. What were they to say to the sorceress? Ethel, greatly moved, took Phil’s arm. It seemed to her that her own lot was to be decided. She felt her heart beating as they advanced to the grotto. Helia was at her side. Will was behind with Suzanne. They came to the opening and leaned forward, but saw nothing.
Little by little their eyes grew accustomed to the darkness. They could distinguish, uncertainly, in the depths, eyes that shone—and then a figure, huddled together on a bed of rushes, looking at them, motionless, with her finger to her mouth, like a statue of silence! The eyes, fixed in turn on each of them, suddenly rested upon Helia with a strange glow.
“Oh, how she looks at me!” Helia said, seizing Ethel’s arm. “Oh, mon Dieu, if she only will not speak! Let us go away; I entreat you, let us go away! I am afraid!”
They started back, and felt relieved when they were out of sight of the sinister eyes.
“Let us go,” said Ethel.
At the feet of St. Morgana, the suppliant one was now praying as in an ecstasy.