I had been trying with all my might to keep from my mind the delicious thought of Beelo’s metamorphosis, but self-deception was no longer possible. I must revel in this new and pleasant experience. The one duty that I must observe was the keeping of my promise to Lentala that I would not let her little sister know that I knew.
“Are we ready?” cheerily asked Beela, picking up the lantern and darkening it with a cloth. “Come. No talking till I give you leave. We must be careful in this wing, for Lentala’s servants might wake. The noises of the storm will help us, but the veranda is drenched. We must take the other way.”
She opened the door through which she had entered last, and we were in darkness when she closed it; but I had dimly seen that it was a corridor.
“We can’t use the lantern yet,” she whispered, slipping her hand down my sleeve to my fingers. “Can you find your way, Christopher?”
“Yes.” There was always something tragic in Christopher’s whisper.
“Do you love me, Christopher?” she teasingly asked, squeezing my fingers.
“Yes, ma’am.”
It required great stoicism for me to hold my hand passive and not return the pressure, but I was amazed when she abruptly dropped my fingers. I could see nothing except a faint glow through the cloth about the lantern, but I peremptorily seized her sleeve, drew her arm up, took her hand, and squeezed it hard, for reproof. She made no resistance. Beela was very sweet in the dark,—I remembered the passage through the mountain.
We almost immediately turned into a much longer stretch, as I knew by the whispering echoes of our steps; and soon the shrouded light of Beela’s lantern made the walls visible. After leading us down a dark stair she halted before a door, unlocked it, ushered us within, relocked the door, and removed the cloth from the light.
This chamber was a disordered lumber-room, filled with odds and ends of broken things, native and foreign. I was less interested in the rubbish than in the new picture of Beela in the ascending light from the lantern. It made a witchery of her chin, emphasized the graceful curve of her lips, filled her delicate nostrils, and threw her eyes into mystical shadow. I tried to get her hand again, but failed. Beela in the light was not the same as Beela in the dark.