“No, in the solid. Here is the key of the catacombs.” And he took a key that hung from a nail on the wall.
“Bah, ha, yah!” exploded the baron, in a ferocious sneer, rather than a laugh, and shrugging his great shoulders to his ears, he shook them in barbarous glee, crying—“What clever fellow you are, Monsieur Arden! you see so well srough ze millstone! Ich bin klug und weise—you sing zat song. I am intelligent and wise, eh, he! gra-a, ha, ha!”
He seized the candlestick in one hand, and shaking the key in the other by the side of his huge forehead, he nodded once or twice to David Arden.
“Not much life where we are going; but you shall see zem bose.”
“You speak riddles, Baron; but by all means bring me, as you say, face to face with them.”
“Very good, Monsieur; you'll follow me,” said the baron. And he opened a door that admitted to the gallery, and, with the candle and the keys, he led the way, by this corridor, to an iron door that had a singular appearance, being sunk two feet back in a deep wooden frame, that threw it into shadow. This he unlocked, and with an exertion of his weight and strength, swung slowly open.
