A moment later he dragged his low ponderous bedstead away from the corner, where we saw that in the floor was a cunningly-concealed trap-door, which, on being lifted, disclosed a deep, dark, well-like hole beneath.
“Be careful,” he cautioned us, “the steps are rather difficult in places,” and holding the lantern he soon disappeared, leaving us to follow him down a roughly-hewn spiral flight of foot-holes in the stone, deeper and deeper into the solid rock, damp and slimy in places where the water percolated through and fell in loudly-sounding drops.
“Bend low!” ordered our guide, and we saw the faint glimmer of this lamp lighting our path along a narrow, tortuous burrow which ran away at right angles and sloped down still further into the heart of the cliff. In places we went through a veritable quagmire of mud and slime, while the close atmosphere smelt foul and earthy.
Suddenly we emerged into a great opening, the dimensions of which we could not ascertain with that one single glimmering light.
“These caverns run for miles,” explained the monk. “The galleries run in all directions right under the city of Lucca and over towards the Arno. They have never been explored. Listen!”
In the weird darkness we heard the distant roaring of tumbling waters far away.
“That is the subterranean river, the stream that divides the secret from all men save yourself,” he said. Then he went forward again, keeping along one side of the gigantic cavern through which we were passing, and we followed, approaching nearer those thundering waters, until at last he told us to halt, and appeared to be examining the rough walls upon which shone great glittering stalactites.
Presently he found a large white mark similar to the letter E on the rock upon the cliff-side, and placed his lantern on the floor.
“Don’t move another step forward,” he said. Then he produced from a hole, where it appeared to be well hidden, a long, roughly-made footbridge, consisting of a single plank, with a light handrail on each side. This he pushed before him while I held the lantern, until he came to the edge of a deep chasm and then bridged it across so that we could pass over.
When in the centre, he held aloft the lantern, and as we peered down a hundred feet we shuddered to see, deep down in the chasm, the rushing flood of black water roaring away into the bowels of the earth, a terrible trap to those who ventured to explore that weird, dank place.