“Not precisely. But, I say, Kingsley, what light is that shining through there? I mean to see.”
“No, you won't,” said Sir Norman, rapidly and noiselessly replacing the flag. “It's nothing, I tell you, but a number of will-o-'wisps having a ball. Finally, and for the last time, Mr. Ormiston, will you have the goodness to tell me what has sent you here?”
“Come out to the air, then. I have no fancy for talking in this place; it smells like a tomb.”
“There is nothing wrong, I hope?” inquired Sir Norman, following his friend, and threading his way gingerly through the piles of rubbish in the profound darkness.
“Nothing wrong, but everything extremely right. Confound this place! It would be easier walking on live eels than through these winding and lumbered passages. Thank the fates, we are through them, at last! for there is the daylight, or, rather the nightlight, and we have escaped without any bones broken.”
They had reached the mouldering and crumbling doorway, shown by a square of lighter darkness, and exchanged the damp, chill atmosphere of the vaults for the stagnant, sultry open air. Sir Norman, with a notion in his head that his dwarfish highness might have placed sentinels around his royal residence, endeavored to pierce the gloom in search of them. Though he could discover none, he still thought discretion the better part of valor, and stepped out into the road.
“Now, then, where are you going?” inquired Ormiston for, following him.
“I don't wish to talk here; there is no telling who may be listening. Come along.”
Ormiston glanced back at the gloomy rain looming up like a black spectre in the blackness.
“Well, they must have a strong fancy for eavesdropping, I must say, who world go to that haunted heap to listen. What have you seen there, and where have you left your horse?”