Michal, in the extremity of her bitterness and despair, was capable of anything, so she allowed Pirka to let her down into the well. By the light of the burning fagots, she found the described opening and stepped into it. The bucket again ascended, and in a short time Pirka also came down, holding fast in her hands the other end of the chain and gradually letting the bucket down ring by ring. On arriving opposite to the opening, she, too, sprang out of the bucket and unloosed it from the chain, whereupon the other bucket loosing its equilibrium, fell down into the water, and the chain ran rattling up to the wheel.
"Well, my pretty little lady! I think we may now go on a little further," said Pirka, who carried on her back the bundle in which were all Michal's fine clothes.
At the end of the narrow passage was an open iron door, which led into a low vaulted cellar, full of large barrels containing pitch, tar, sulphur, and tow, in fact all the raw materials of the headsman's trade, besides sundry tanned hides, the exuviæ of his triumphs. This cellar terminated in a long corridor, and at the end of the corridor was another iron door.
Pirka had a key which opened this door, so she was able to go in and out of the house unseen whenever she liked.
The object of this subterraneous way was to enable the headsman to escape, in case robber bands besieged his house and drove him to extremities. The little iron door led into a wood.
In the cellar was a flight of wooden steps leading up to a trapdoor.
Before quitting this corridor, Pirka wove out of the tow a huge skein, which reached from one end of the corridor to the other, and as she opened the door for Michal to go out, she hurled the burning fagot into the tow.
"Why do you throw the fagot into the tow?" asked Michal.
"Because it would only betray us outside here; nor do we want it, for the moon is still high."
"But the cellar might catch fire?"