"Why, you are quite right," said Alworth, looking up with wide open astonished eyes. Was this young farmer such a dull-pated clodpole after all? "Though how you should guess—"
"Oh! I have heard of such contrivances as these subterranean ways," said Lawrence carelessly. "Where does it lead from?"
"Under your nose almost!" laughed Alworth, pointing to one of the large buttons, or bosses, carved on the intersections of the oaken framework of the wainscoting which lined the room.
"The dog's face?" asked Lee, carefully noting his glance.
"Nay, 'tis a sphinx's. And right well 'tis said she has guarded her secret for the three hundred years this house has been built."
"So long?"
"Ay. Just about the same time that the original foundations of what is now the king's palace were set. Some say that the lord of it, and my grandfather six or seven times removed, had dealings together in the black art,—but that is a way folks have of talking of honest traders when they happen to grow rich,—and that the two would meet together alone in the vaults at dead of night over their crucibles, to find out the secret of making gold."
"Was he of your craft, Master Alworth?" asked Lawrence.
"Ay; and a skilful master of it he must have been," said Alworth proudly, detaching the key from its chain and handing it to Lawrence for his inspection, "to have been able to cast such a pretty thing as this."
The sphinx's throat.