Brownie followed her guide bravely.
“Take care!” he cried, as she stumbled and nearly fell over a grave; “I did not think we were so near that. It seems strange that it should remain when all the others have disappeared.”
He halted for her, for her sudden fall, the weird place, together with the night of excitement, made her so weak and trembling that she could scarcely walk.
“Are you hurt?” he asked, pityingly.
She shook her head and tried to smile courageously, but he saw that her lips were white and quivering.
It was beginning to be light overhead, but, hemmed in by those towering walls, the place, with its deep-tangled grass, and damp, moldy smell, was fearfully gloomy and ghostly, while her guide, with his misshapen form, and his white waving hair, his haggard face, rendered more ghastly still in the flickering, uncertain light of the candle which he bore, made it seem like some haunted spot in which restless spirits roamed at will.
When they reached the chapel there was another grating to be removed, another window, from which nearly every pane of glass had disappeared, to be opened, and they came to another flight of stone steps.
These they descended cautiously, for they were becoming loosened from their place, and were falling to ruin, and soon found themselves in a vaulted cavern, dismal and gloomy enough for the dwelling-place of the dead.
The candle flickered and flared, giving an uncertain light, but Brownie could see the numerous shelves which were ranged along the side, each containing a silent occupant, in its moldy, worm-eaten coffin.
A gasp of fear told young Randal something of what his companion was suffering.