Yet, to save his life, he durst not put forth his hand to touch it.
If such were the terrors guarding the exterior of the tomb, what might he not expect to find in the interior?
"Now, Godfrey, our silly fright being over, to work! I will dig while you watch. Take a seat on this boulder here, and if you should see anybody coming, give the word and I will suspend operations for a while. There cannot be more than five or six feet of earth to knock away, and then the passage will be open to our view. The work ought not to take long."
Godfrey did as desired, and Idris flung off ulster, coat, and vest. Rolling his shirt-sleeves above the elbow, he drew the tools from the sack and selected a spade.
"Now to disturb the repose of old Orm the Golden!" he cried, excitement sparkling from his eyes. "Now to evoke the fires of the Asas!"
The sickly, withered mandrake-root, with its resemblance to a human hand, fronted him, and as if in contempt of his former fears, he drove the edge of the spade clean through the stalk. The separated parts seemed to quiver and writhe in a manner extremely suggestive of animal-life.
A thrill of terror shot through his frame, and, spade in hand, he paused, staring at the root; for, simultaneously with its dissection, there came a sound, bearing resemblance to a plaintive human cry.
It was not the creation of his fancy, since Godfrey too had heard it.
"In the name of all that's holy what was that?" he asked, starting up from the stone upon which he had been sitting.
"That is what I should like to know," said Idris, trying to look unconcerned. "It came—or seemed to come—from this plant here. The poet speaks of:—