"Heed thy footsteps! Here are steps—thou must go down with me."
As she spoke she began to descend a flight of stone stairs into a vault beneath. He would have held back, but she gently and irresistibly led him down, when they stood upright in a damp chamber, in which a faint light struggled through an opening in the floor of the chapel above. The dank, noisome atmosphere of the place, and its subterraneous position beneath the chancel, filled him with awe and fear.
"Woman, whither have you led me?" he asked, in a voice deep with the mingled emotions of suspicion, alarm, and resentment.
"Into the tomb where rest the bones of Black Morris O'More," she answered, in a voice that sounded hollow and sepulchral.
"Mother of Heaven!" he gasped, "then is my soul lost!"
"Thou wilt little heed thy soul, proud youth, when thou hast heard my tale."
"Be speedy with thy story, then; for, good or ill befall, I will not long remain here."
"Fear not; thou art in no danger! Step cautiously, and I will guide thee across this chamber to my own house. This is only the anteroom to it. Ha, ha!" she laughed frightfully. "See! I have grim Morris O'More to stand guard over my door."
As she said this she struck something, which, in the darkness, rattled like bones suspended from the ceiling of the vault.
"Sorceress!" cried he, shuddering at the sound, "I will go no farther."