I felt that I would give anything to go down those rough stone stairs, only half way down, perhaps; just far enough to see what lay underneath.
It was as if Taven herself had called me, saying: "Come, I have something to show you."
I put a foot on the first step, then the other foot wanted a chance to touch the next step, and so on, each demanding its own turn in fairness. I had gone down eight steps, counting each one, when I heard a faint rustling noise. I stopped, my heart giving a jump, like a bird in a cage.
There were no windows in the underground room, which was much smaller and less regular in shape than the one above, but a faint twilight seemed to rain down into it in streaks, like spears of rain, and I guessed that holes had been made in the rock to give light and ventilation. Something alive was down there, moving. I was frightened; I hardly dared to look. And I had a nightmare feeling of being struck dumb and motionless. I tried to turn and run up the stairs but I had to look, and the gray filtering light struck into a pair of eyes.
CHAPTER XIV
They were great black eyes, sunken into the face of an old woman. She stood in a corner, and it occurred to me that she had perhaps run there, as much afraid of me as I was of her. No eyes were ever like those, I thought, except the eyes of a gipsy.
"What are you doing?" I stammered, in French, hardly expecting her to understand and answer me; but she replied in an old, cracked voice that sounded hollow and unreal in the cavern.
"I have been asleep," she said. "I am waiting for my sons. We are in Les Baux on business. I thought, when I heard you, it was my boys coming to fetch me. I can"t go till they are here, because I have dropped my rosary with a silver crucifix down below, and the way is too steep for me. They must get it."
"Do they know you are here?" I asked.
"Oh, yes," she returned. "They will come at six. We shall perhaps have our supper and sleep in this house to-night. Then we will go away in the morning."
"It is only a little after five now," I told her. "You frightened me at first."
She cackled a laugh. "I am nothing to be afraid of," she chuckled. "I am very old. Besides, there is no harm in me. If you have the time, I could tell your fortune."
"I"m afraid I haven"t time," I said, though I was tempted. To have one"s fortune told in a cavern under a rock house where Romans had lived, told by a real, live gipsy who looked as if she might be a lineal descendant from Taven, and who was probably fresh from worshipping at the tomb of Sarah! It would be an experience. No girl I knew, not even Pam herself, who is always having adventures, could ever have had one as good as this. If only I need not miss it!
"It would take no more than five minutes," she pleaded in her queer French, which was barely understandable, and evidently not the tongue in which she was most at home.
"Well, then," I said, hastily calculating that it was no more than ten minutes since Lady Turnour and Sir Samuel left me, and that the water for their punch couldn"t possibly have begun to boil yet. "Well, then, perhaps I might have five minutes" fortune, if it doesn"t cost too much; but I"m very poor--poorer than you, maybe."
"That cannot be, for then you would have less than nothing," said the old woman, cackling again. "But it is your company I like to have, more than your money. I have been waiting here a long time, and I am dull. No fortune can be expected to come true, however, unless the teller"s hand be crossed with silver, otherwise I might give it you for nothing. But a two-franc piece--"
"I think I have as much as that," I cut her short, as she paused on the hint; and deciding not to ask her, as I felt inclined, to come to the upper room lest we should be interrupted, I went down the remaining five or six high steps, and got out my purse under a long, straight rod of gray light.
There were only a few francs left, but I would have beggared myself to buy this adventure, and thought it cheap at the price she named. I found a two-franc piece--a bright new one, worthy of its destiny--and looking up as I shut my purse, I saw the old woman"s eyes fixed on me, and sharp as gimlets. Used to the dusk now, I could see her dark face distinctly, and so like a hungry crow did she look that I was startled. But it was only for a second that I felt a little uncomfortable. She was so old and weak, I was so young and strong, that even if she were an evil creature who wanted to do me harm, I could shake her off and run away as easily as a bird could escape from a tied cat.
"Make a cross with the silver piece on my palm," she said.
I did as she told me, and it was a dark and dirty palm, in the hollow of which seemed to lie a tiny pool of shadow. Her eyes darted to the bracelet-watch as my wrist slipped out of the protecting sleeve, and I drew back my hand quickly. She plucked the coin from my fingers, and then told me to give her my left hand.
"You can"t see the lines," I said. "It"s too dark."
"I see with my night eyes," she answered, as a witch might have answered. "And I feel. I have the quick touch of the blind. I can feel the pores in a flower-petal."
Impressed, I let her hold my hand in one of her lean claws while she lightly pa.s.sed the spread fingers of the other down the length of mine from the tips to the joining with the palm, and then along the palm itself, up and down and across. It was like having a feather drawn over my hand.
"You have foreign blood in your veins," she said. "You are not all French. But you have the charm of the Latin girl. You can make men love you. You make them love you whether you wish or not, and whether _they_ wish or not. Sometimes that is a great trouble to you. You are anxious now, for many reasons. One of the reasons is a man, but there is more than one who loves you. You make one of them unhappy, and yourself unhappy, too. The man you ought to love is young and handsome, and dark--very dark. Do not think ever of marrying a fair man. You are on a journey now. Something very unexpected will happen to you at the end--something to do with a man, and something to do with a woman. Be careful then, for your future happiness may depend on your actions in a moment of surprise. You are not rich, but you have a lucky hand. You could find things hidden if you set yourself to look for them."
"Hidden treasure?" I asked, laughingly, and venturing to break in because she was speaking slowly now, as if she had come to the end of her string of prophecies.
"Perhaps. Yes. If you looked for the hidden treasure here, you might be the one to find it after all these hundreds of years. Who knows? These things happen to the lucky ones."
"Well, if I believed that I"d been born for such luck, I"d try to come back some day, and have a look," I said. "I should begin in this house, I think."
"It is never so lucky to return for things as to try and get them at the right time," the old woman p.r.o.nounced. "If you would like to wait till my sons come--"
"No, I wouldn"t," I said. "I must go now."
"If you would at least do me a favour, for the good fortune I have told you so cheap," she begged. "I, who in my day have had as much as two louis from great ladies who would know their fortune!"
"What is the favour?" I asked.
"Oh, it is next to nothing. Only to go down to the foot of the stairs in the cellar below this, and pick up my rosary, which I dropped, and which I know is lying there."
"It"s too dark," I said. "I couldn"t see to find it--and you said your sons were coming soon."
"Not soon enough, for when you are gone, and I am alone, I should like to pray at the time of vespers. And it is not so dark as you think.
Besides, this will be the test of the fortune I have just told you. If it"s true that you have the lucky hand for finding you will put it on the rosary in an instant. That will be a sign you can find anything.
Unless you are afraid, mademoiselle--"
"Of course I"m not afraid," I said, for I always have been ashamed of my fear of the dark, and have forced myself to fight against it. "If the rosary is at the foot of the staircase I"ll try and get it for you, but I won"t go any farther."
Her corner was close by the opening where more steps were cut into the rock. I could see the bottom, I thought, and started down quickly, because I was in a hurry to come back and be on my way home--to the Aigle.
Six, seven steps, and then--crash! down I came on my hands and knees.
Oh, how it hurt! And how it made my head ring! Fireworks went off before my eyes, and I felt stupid, inclined to lie still. But suddenly the idea flashed into my brain, like lightning darting among dark clouds, that the old woman had made me do this thing on purpose. She had played me a trick--and if she had, she must have some bad reason for doing it. Those two sons of hers! I scrambled up, shocked and jarred by the fall, my hands and knees smarting as if they were skinned.
"I"ve fallen down," I cried. "Do you hear?"
No answer.
I called again. It was as still as a grave up above. It seemed to me that it could not be so unnaturally, so inhumanly still, if there were a living, breathing creature there. I was sure now that the horrible old thing had known what would happen, had wanted it to happen, and had gone hobbling away to fetch her wicked gipsy sons. How she had looked at my poor little purse! How she had looked at Pamela"s watch!
I saw now how it was that I had been so stupid. The dim light from above had lain on the last step and made it appear as if the floor were near; but there was a gap between the stairway and the bottom of the cellar.
The lower steps had been hewn away--perhaps in a quest for the ever-elusive treasure. Maybe a crack had appeared, and people, always searching, had suspected a secret opening and tried to find it. Anyway, there was the gap, and there was a rough pile of broken stone not far off, which had once been the end of the rocky stairway. It was lucky that I hadn"t struck my forehead against it in falling--the only bit of luck which the fortune-teller had brought me!
As it was, I was not seriously hurt. Perhaps I had torn my dress, and I should certainly have to buy a new pair of gloves, whether I could afford them or not; otherwise I didn"t think I should suffer, except for a few black-and-blue patches. But how was I to get out of this dark hole? That was the question. I was too hot with anger against the sly old fox of a woman, who had pretended that she wanted to say her prayers, to feel the chill of fear; but I couldn"t help understanding that she had got me into this trap with the object of annexing my watch and purse or anything else of value. Perhaps the gipsy sons would rob me first, and then murder me, rather than I should live to tell; but if they meant to do that they would have to come and be at it soon, or I should be missed and sought.
This last fancy really did turn me cold, and the nice hot anger which had kept me warm began to ooze out at my fingers and toes. I thought of my brave new brother, who would fight ten gipsy men to save me if he only knew; and then I wanted to cry.
But that would be the silliest thing I could do. Soon they would begin to look for me (oh, how furious Lady Turnour would be that I should dare keep her waiting, and at the fuss about a servant!) and if I screamed at the top of my voice maybe some one would hear.
I took a long breath, and gave vent to a blood-curdling shriek which would have made the fortune of an actress on the stage. Odd! I couldn"t help thinking of that at the time. One thinks of queer things at the most inappropriate moments.
It was a glorious howl, but the rock walls seemed to catch it as a battledore catches a shuttlec.o.c.k, and send it bounding back to me. I knew then that a cry from those depths would not carry far; and the fear at my heart gave a sharp, rat-like bite.