He bolted the door again with its great bars, then gravely preceded his guest to the foot of the turret stair, where he handed him the candle.
“You're in a dreary airt of the house,” he said apologetically, “but I hope you may find it not uncomfortable. Doom is more than two-thirds but empty shell, and the bats have the old chapel above you. Oidhche mhath! Good night!” He turned upon his heel and was gone into the farther end of the passage.
As Montaiglon went up to his room, the guttering candle flame, puffed at by hidden and mischievous enemies from broken ports and gun-slits, showed upon the landing lower than his own a long corridor he had not observed upon his first ascent. With the candle held high above his head he glanced into the passage, that seemed to have several doors on either hand. In a castle so sparsely occupied the very knowledge of this long and empty corridor in the neighbourhood of his sleeping apartment conferred a sense of chill and mystery. He thought he could perceive the odour of damp, decayed wood, crumbled lime, hanging rotten in stagnant airs and covered with the dust of years. “Dieu!” he exclaimed involuntarily, “this is no Cammercy.” He longed for some relief from the air of mystery and dread that hung about the place. A laugh would have been a revelation, a strain of song a miracle of healing. And all at once he reflected upon the Annapla as yet unseen.
“These might be her quarters,” he reflected, finding a solace in the thought. The chill was at once less apparent, a pleasant glow of companionship came over him. Higher up he held the light to see the farther into the long passage, and as he did so the flame was puffed out. It seemed so human a caprice that he drew himself sharply against the wall, ready by instinct to evade any rush or thrust that was to follow. And then he smiled at his own alarm at a trick of the wind through some of La-mond's ill-patched walls, and found his consolation in the sense of companionship confirmed by sight of a thin line of light below a door mid-way up the curious passage.
“Annapla, for a louis!” he thought cheerfully. “Thank heaven for one petticoat in Doom—though that, in truth, is to concede the lady but a scanty wardrobe.” And he hummed softly as he entered his own room.
Wearied exceedingly by the toils of the day, he had no sooner thrown himself upon the bed than he slept with no need for the lullaby aid of the sea that rumoured light and soothingly round the rock of Doom.
CHAPTER V — THE FLAGEOLET
He woke from a dream of pressing danger and impotent flight to marvel where he was in darkness; fancied himself at first in some wayside inn mid-way over Scotland, and sat up suddenly with an exclamation of assurance that he was awake to the suppositious landlord who had called, for the sense of some sound but stilled on the second of his waking was strong within him. He fastened upon the vague starlit space of the little window to give him a clew to his situation. Then he remembered Doom, and, with the window for his key, built up the puzzle of his room, wondering at the cause of his alarm.
The wind had risen and sent a loud murmur through the trees along the coast; the sea, in breakers again, beat on the rock till Doom throbbed. But there was nothing in that to waken a man who had ridden two days on coarse roads and encountered and fought with banditti. Decidedly there was some menace in the night; danger on hard fields had given him blood alert and unsleeping; the alarum was drumming at his breast. Stealthily he put out his hand, and it fell as by a fiddler's instinct upon the spot desired—the hilt of his sword. There he kept it with his breath subdued, and the alarum severely quelled.