It would be hard to describe my sensations at that moment. They were not painful, the feeling that overcame me could not even be called fear. I seemed to be in another world. From somewhere, as if from the world that I had left, there came to me, a few seconds later, the swift frightened pattering of three pairs of children’s feet. This sound soon died away, and I was left alone in that tomb-like place, in the presence of an apparition inexplicable and strange.
Time ceased to exist for me, therefore I cannot say whether it was soon or not before I was aware of suppressed whispering under the altar.
“Why doesn’t he climb up again?”
“You can see, he’s frightened.”
The first voice seemed to be that of a very little child, the second might have belonged to a boy of my own age. I seemed to see, too, a pair of black eyes shining through the chinks in the old altar.
“What’s he going to do now?” the whisper recommenced.
“Wait and see,” answered the older voice.
Something moved so violently under the altar that the structure trembled, and a little figure emerged from underneath it.
It was a boy of nine, taller than I was, thin and slight as a reed. He was dressed in a dirty shirt, and his hands were thrust into the pockets of a pair of short, tight breeches. His black hair hung in shaggy elf-locks over his dark, pensive eyes.
Although he was a stranger and had appeared on the scene in such an unusual and unexpected manner, and although he was approaching me with that infinitely provocative look with which boys always met each other among our bazaars when they were preparing for a fight, I nevertheless felt very much braver than I had before. My courage increased when there appeared from under the altar, or rather from a trap-door in the floor which was concealed by the altar, another grimy little face framed in golden curls, and a pair of bright blue eyes fixed on me full of childish curiosity.