"It goes," I answered, holding my head low, so that my face was lost in the cowl.
"They are beginning to light up, I am told?"
"Yes."
He took up a small lamp, and opening a door in a kind of buttress that strengthened one of the arches, he led the way through it, and up a narrow winding staircase made in the thickness of the wall. Presently we passed an open door, and I ticked it off in my mind. It led to the rooms on the first floor from the ground. Twenty steps higher we passed another door--closed this time. Again fifteen steps and we came to a third. That floor held my heart, and I looked round greedily, desperately, for some way of evading my guide and so reaching it. But I saw only the smooth stones of the wall; and he continued to climb.
I halted half a dozen steps higher. "What is it?" he asked, looking down at me.
"I have dropped a note," I said; and I began to grope about the steps.
"For the Chief?"
"Yes."
"Here, take the light!" he answered impatiently. "And be quick! if your news is worth the telling, it is worth telling quickly. Sacré! man, what have you done?"
I had let the lamp fall on the steps, extinguishing it; and we were in darkness. In the moment of silence which followed, before he recovered from his surprise, I could hear the voices of men above us, and the tramp of their feet on the roof; and a cold draught of air met me. He swore another oath. "Get down, get down!" he cried angrily, "and let me pass you! You are a pretty messenger to--there wait; wait until I fetch another light."