"Come with me, Robert More!" she said, firmly; "and see thou fall not over the tomb of Black Morris in the way."
She drew him by the arm as she spoke with a strength far beyond his own. He felt for his hunting-knife, determined to free himself by striking her with it.
"Hold!" she cried, divining his intentions; "I will not harm thee. Here is my abode!"
While speaking, she struck against the opposite wall with her staff, and a door flew open, exposing the interior of a small circular chamber receiving a dim light from the sky, which was seen calm and blue through the roofless tower above.
"Welcome to the abode of Elpsy of the Tower!" she said, with irony. "'Tis not the princely one thou art accustomed to, but it will serve thy present purpose. Didst know that on thy domains thou hadst such a brave woodland palace? Look about thee!"
The young man entered the room with a feeling of relief that he no longer was in the very sepulchre, though still within reach, of the tomb of Black Morris the accursed. The apartment in which he now found himself originally had been constructed by the priests for the preservation of the sacred vessels of the church in times of hostile invasion of their domains. It was a subterranean room, situated beneath a circular tower or turret that rose at the southeast angle of the chapel. The tower once had contained three floors, one above the other; the mortises for the sleepers being yet visible, ranged regularly and at equal distances around the inner side. The top or roof of the tower, with its battlement and Gothic ornaments, had long since fallen in; and the floors, down even to the ground that formed the floor of the witch's apartment and the very foundation of the tower, had successively decayed and disappeared. The only entrance to this tunnel-like turret was the door from the sepulchre by which he had been admitted. From this vault to the chambers formerly above, access had been obtained by a circular stairway within the tower and conducting from floor to floor, the beds of the beams and fixtures which supported them still remaining in the masonry. The object of these once-existing upper chambers of the round tower is involved in mystery, though tradition hath given to the "three tower-chambers" each their own wild tale of dark superstition and priestly crime.
As he stood in the vault in the bottom of the tower, and looked far out at the sky, it was like gazing upward from the bottom of a well. The light came in strongly at the top, but grew fainter and fainter as it penetrated deeper, till only a dim twilight reached the chamber below. He recognised the tower as the loftiest of the ruin which often he had made a landmark when hunting, and ascertained thereby his position: this discovery rendering him more at his ease, he turned to survey the subterranean abode which Elpsy had chosen.
In the midst of the floor was a heap of cinders, on which stood a small iron kettle, apparently the only utensil she used for preparing her food. A stone escutcheon, broken from one of the tombs, served her for a seat, and a pile of fern and leaves for a bed. These constituted all the necessaries that her singular and solitary way of life called for. But there were other objects that attracted his attention, and thrilled his blood as he gazed on them. Beside the door, its bones tied together with strips of deer's hide, hung a skeleton of great size, its ghastly jaws carefully bound up and grinning horribly, and its hollow, bony sockets filled with stag's eyes wildly staring at him. Sculls, cross-bones, and other hideous mementoes of the charnel-house were arranged along the sides of the walls; while charms, amulets, and all the numerous instruments of sorcery lay about. Through the open door he beheld the stone effigy of Black Morris, which had slided from its recumbent posture above his tomb by the sinking of the earth, standing nearly upright, staring with his stony gaze into the round chamber, before which swung the skeleton of which his tomb had been despoiled. The tomb itself was open, and its black sepulchral mouth yawned as if it would gladly receive a new occupant.
Terrible to Lester's nerves was the trial produced by this scene. Bold and fearless as he was by nature, he could not suppress emotions of fear (the cowardice of superstition) at the situation and circumstances in which he had suffered himself to be drawn by the taunting language of a wild weird woman, who not only was the professed enemy of all mankind, but had manifested hostile feelings towards himself. He nevertheless resolved that, having adventured, he would go through with it, trusting, with religious faith, that all good saints would help him against spiritual foes; while for protection against mortal ones, ay, even Elpsy herself, he trusted to his own coolness, and, if it should come to that, the broad sharp blade of his hunting-knife. Having fortified his mind with this resolve, he felt more confidence; and being now in some degree familiarized with his situation and the ghastly objects around him, he turned to address the sorceress, who, on entering, had seated herself on a scull, and, with her chin buried between her hands, continued to fix her dark eyes upon his face with a mingled expression of pity and malignant triumph. Before he could speak she rose, and, laying her hand on his arm, said, in a tone between sadness and derision,
"How like you my abode, my lord?"