For a full five minutes she wavered between two courses of action; to go on inside this den, or to go back to Attatak and attempt to pass it unobserved.
Perhaps it was the touch of a finger on what she supposed to be a far off key—the resuming of the music; perhaps it was her own utter weariness that decided her at last. Whatever it was, she set a resolute foot inside the entrance, and the next instant found herself carefully picking her way down the dark passage toward the dim lamp.
To her surprise, when she at last reached the lamp that hung over a door, she found not an oil lamp, but a small electric light bulb.
“Will marvels never cease?” she whispered.
For a second she hesitated. Should she knock? She hated spying; yet the door stood invitingly ajar. If the persons within did not appear to be the sort of persons a girl might trust; if she could see them and remain unobserved, there was still opportunity for flight.
Acting upon this impulse, she peered through the crack in the door.
Imagine her surprise upon seeing at the far end of a long, high-ceilinged, heavily timbered room, not a radio horn, but a pipe organ.
“So,” she breathed, “my first thought was right. That enchanting music was produced on the spot. And by such a musician!”
Seated with his side toward her, was the bent figure of an old man. His long, flowing white beard, his snowy locks, the dreamy look upon his face as his fingers drifted back and forth across the keys, reminded her of pictures she had seen of ancient bards playing upon golden harps.
“‘Harp of the North that mouldering long has hung,’” she recited in a low voice.