Yet almost it seemed to my now frighted heart that this alone could be the case.
The air reeked and was clammy, as though with long confinement in this underground place, and by remaining ever unrefreshed from without by heaven's pure breezes was mawkish and sickly as the breath of a charnel house--perhaps 'twas one!--perhaps those who died here were left to fester and moulder away till their corpses turned to skeletons and their skeletons to dust; to die here, where no cry for help could issue forth, no more than any sound except a muffled one could penetrate, as I knew at this moment, for far above I heard a deep boom that seemed like the muffled roar of a cannon--a sound that was in truth the eternal bell of the cathedral telling the hour; also another broke on my ear--a swift, rushing noise, yet deadened, too--the sound, I thought, of the Minho passing near.
Then, all at once--as I knew that the sickly, reeking air would choke me, felt sure that ere many paces more had been traversed I must reel and fall upon that sanded floor--there blew upon my face a gust of air--oh! God! it was as though I had changed a monumental vault all full of rankling dead for some pure forest through which fresh breezes swept--far down toward where my dimmed eyes gazed I saw a glimmer of something that looked like the light of a coming dawn.
And I thanked heaven that, at least, these horrid vaults were not to be my prison or my grave; that, let whatever might befall me, my punishment was not to be dealt out here.
And ever still as I went on that stricken man walked by my side, held my arm with his hand, and directed the way toward the sombre light that gleamed afar.
CHAPTER XXVI.
WHAT HAS HAPPENED?
The light increased as we advanced; the space it occupied grew larger; also it seemed to be entering at what I now judged to be the mouth, or exit, of some narrow, vaulted passage, through which we were progressing and arriving at the end of; almost, too, it seemed as if this passage was itself growing less dark; as if now--as I turned my eyes to where the mute walked by my side--the outline of his form was becoming visible.
What was I to find at the end of this outlet--what to see awaiting me when at last I stood at the opening in the midst of the wintry dawn--a scaffold, or the braséro? Which? I perceived now--my eyes accustoming themselves to the dusky gloom--that this vaulted way, or corridor, was one hewn through a bed of rock, and roughly, too, blasted, perhaps, in earlier days; and that all along its sides were great slabs, or masses, of this rock, that lay where they had fallen. Perceived something else, also--a man crouching down behind one of the fallen blocks, his cape held across his face by one hand, so that naught but the eyes were visible; the eyes--and one other thing that shone and glistened even in the surrounding gloom--a huge gold earring, of the circumference of a crown-piece, which fell over the crimson edge, or guarding, of that cloak.
Where had I seen a man wearing such earrings as that before? Where? Then, even as I went on to my death, I remembered--recalled the man. 'Twas he who had cried out to the Alcáide in the court, bidding him question Eaton as to how he knew so much of Gramont's past--yet--what doing here, why hiding behind that fallen mass? Was there some one within these dungeons whom he sought--some one for whom an attempted rescue was to be planned? I knew of none--knew of no other prisoner within these walls--since now Gramont was, must be, as far away as his unhappy child--my lost love, Juana. Yet, perhaps, it was not very like I should have known.