"Think you there is aught beneath here?"
"Beneath here? No, we are already in the bowels of the earth."
"Ah, that is good!" and again he cackled like a man well pleased with himself.
Presently I saw him pressing the ground hard with his heel, and then, as if by magic, there opened close by my feet a dark aperture.
"Descend," he cried, "descend!"
"We will go together, Father Solomon," I made answer.
"Ah, you do not trust me. A good youth, a cautious youth."
Still holding the candle in one hand, he came close to the dark hole in the ground, from which came a musty ill-smelling air, and then he put his left foot into the hole, while I held his right arm.
"That is well," he said, and then I saw the rungs of a ladder.
One, two, three, four steps he went down, until I was almost dragged into the darkness in my endeavour to hold him fast.