"See here! I'm right!" and as I spoke, I drew a match across the stone step. The wind put out the flame. I guarded the second one with my shawl, and lighted the lamp.
"Open quickly, before I lose it," I said.
He did, and we went in,—in through the vestibule, where I first had seen this man, tolling the bell for his mother's death,—up the aisle, where I had gone the day I saw the thirsty, hungry, little mouse. I felt afraid, even with this strong man, for I did not know where I was going. We drew near the pulpit,—the pulpit in which Aaron preached.
"She is not here," Mr. Axtell said; and he looked about the empty pews, feebly lighted from my small flame.
He started forward as he spoke.
"Don't leave me," I said; and I put my hand within his arm.
What we saw was a change in the pulpit, an opening, as if some one had destroyed the panelled front of it.
"Come," I said; and I drew near, and put the lamp through the opening, showing a few stone steps; perhaps there were a dozen of them; at least, they went down into undefined darkness.
"What is this, Miss Percival?"
"I don't know,—I have never seen it before; but I think it leads to the tower. You will find her there. Come!" and I went down the first step, with a feeling far stronger than the prisoner's doomed to step off into interminable depths, in that Old-World castle famous for wrongs to mankind,—for I knew my danger: he does not, as he comes to the last step, from off which he goes down to a deep, watery death.