"Night?" I repeated. "We can easily bring the blackness of midnight upon us in this hole! We have only to extinguish the candle. But we shall never know when it is morning. Daylight never enters here. No cheerful cock-crow ever reaches this tomb. Here, no one will come to rouse us, and say: 'Rise, rise! morning, beauteous morning, is come.'"
"Fie, fie, Baran," chided my Madus. "Do you already regret the step you have taken? Should you be sorry never again to see daylight—now that you have me with you?"
"No, no," I answered, promptly, ashamed of my momentary regret. "No, no," and I set about preparing for our night's rest. We spread our bear skins on the floor of the cave, sat down on them, and ate our supper, becoming quite cheerful as the wine sped with pleasurable warmth through our veins.
Suddenly Madus turned toward me and asked:
"Where do you imagine we are, Baran?"
"In paradise," I made answer, kissing her.
Thereupon she roguishly blew out the light and asked again: "Can you see me?"
"No," I answered, for I could see nothing at all. "Look again, Baran, and repeat after me what I say."
I fixed my eyes where I believed her to be, and repeated after her, word for word, the Lord's Prayer, the Ave Maria and the Credo, and as I did so, it seemed to me as if the dear child's countenance came into view, gradually growing brighter and brighter, until the gloom disappeared, and the subterranean grotto became irradiated as with the sunlight of noon. I did not tell her so, though, for women are so easily made vain; but from that moment I became convinced that Madus was my guardian angel.
Never, in all my life, have I been so happy as I was with my beloved Madus in that underground cave, and I should have been content to stop there with her until the end of time! I would not have inquired if ever a morning would dawn again for us, had not Madus roused me from a sound slumber, and lighted the taper.