“You are going to see, in a little while, why our path is wet,” Elena said. “Meantime, look about you. Do you see that window?” pointing to a fissure in the rock above the cave. Ropes extended from this point to another not visible to them, but in the direction of their pathway. “The closed door you saw next to our chamber leads to that room, and those ropes carry signals to a station that is visible to a second station farther on. From there they are repeated to a third, and that third station we see at home. Anything that takes place here can be known there in a few minutes. They must know already that we have passed the bridge. The house is not such a ruin as it appears, nor so far away from everybody. There are several decent rooms above; and it is only five miles round by the road to Castle Dylar. There are always two persons in the house as guard; and they are changed every week. From an upper window, like this, hidden behind a fissure in the rock, all the roads outside are visible. There are tubes leading to the lower room through which the guard can converse, or listen.”
Tacita did not reply. She disliked mysteries, having had reason to mistrust them.
“We have no more secrets than we must, dear,” her friend said, perceiving the signs of distaste. “All that you have seen is necessary for the protection of good people who have not strength to defend themselves, and would not wish to use force, if they could.”
Arone, who had come back to them, looked at the window over the cave, and blew a whistle. Instantly, a bunch of long, colored streamers ran along one of the ropes, and disappeared. While they waited, Elena gave her charge a first lesson in her mother’s native language, telling the names of their guides, their animals, the rocks, lichens, and the sky, with its light and sources of light. Then, pausing, she raised her hand, and listened. There was a stir, faint and far away, but coming nearer. It became a rushing sound, and a sound of waters. A huge white feather showed above the wet rock underneath which they had passed, and a foaming torrent leaped over its brink, plunged with a sharp stroke to the shelf, and fell into the abyss. Their whole path from the cave’s mouth to within a few feet of where they stood was covered with the wild rush of a mountain torrent.
“That is our beautiful gate,” Elena said. “It needs no bolt. Now we will go. From here the way is all plain.”
They rode for two hours over a hard mountain path, where nothing but dark rocks, pine-trees, and snow was visible. Then through a gap in the mountains an exquisite picture was seen, lower down, and not so far away but its features could be examined. There was a green hill with sheep and lambs, and a little cottage. Outside the door, under the shadow of an awning, sat a man and woman. The man was carving pieces of wood on a table before him; the woman had some work on her lap which kept her hands in constant motion. A young girl came out of the cottage and brought her mother something which they examined closely together. They were all dressed in gray with bright girdles.
“The man carves little olive-wood boxes and bowls,” Elena said. “The woman and her daughter make pillow lace. The girl is our very best lace-maker. Her work brings a high price when we send it out.”
The three continued tranquilly their occupations, unconscious of being observed; and an interposing mountain slope soon hid them from sight.
Tacita began to feel that she had rested but superficially the two past nights. She scarcely cared to look at the changing views where distant snow-peaks and occasional airy distances seemed to intimate that before long they might emerge from their mountain prison.
The path descended gradually; there were glimpses of pine-groves and olives. Suddenly they made a sharp turn, and entered a cave much like that they had started from.