We had pursued our way for, as far as we could judge, nearly a quarter of a mile, Sammy and Fred joking all the while, when the passage gave a sudden turn and commenced to ascend. This alteration in its direction struck me as curious, because, up to that moment we had walked in an absolutely straight line. But as I turned aside to follow my friends a small touch of colour on the wall attracted my attention; and, halting, I held up my lamp to examine it.
It was a crude drawing of a bull, outlined roughly in paint that had once been scarlet, but was now nearly brown, owing to the action of time and damp.
“Look?” I cried, almost beside myself with excitement. “Look! The red bull of the Borgias! The casket is concealed here!”
Chapter Thirty Five.
What we Found at Threave.
The bull passant gules of the Borgias was certainly a significant sign, deep there in the bowels of the earth, so far from the scene of the Borgias’ forgotten triumphs.
My two companions were beside me in an instant, and both agreed that the bull placed there was a signal to the person who gained the secret of The Closed Book—an invitation to search at that spot.
All three of us closely examined the rough stones with which the low tunnel was arched; but none of them showed signs of having been disturbed. The passage had, without doubt, been constructed by the Black Douglas as a secret means of ingress and egress to his stronghold, and most probably all trace of it had been lost in the day of Godfrey Lovel. He and his friend Malcolm had perhaps rediscovered it, and old Godfrey had there ingeniously hidden the precious casket which he had brought from Italy, and which had for years previously been concealed in the fish pond at Croyland, or Crowland, as it is now spelt.