"Come, let's follow the line!" cried he.
It led them straight through the middle of the crypt and to a sort of tunnel-like vault at the far end. This they entered quickly and almost at once knew they had reached the goal of their long quest.
In front of them, about seven feet from the floor, a rough white star had been smeared. Directly below it a kind of alcove or recess appeared, lined with shelves of concrete. What its original purpose may have been it would be hard to say; perhaps it may have been intended as a storage-place for the cathedral archives.
But now the explorers saw it was partly filled with pile on pile of curiously crinkled parchment not protected in any way from the air, not covered or boxed in. To the right, however, stood a massive chest, seemingly of sheet-lead.
"Some sense to the lead," growled Stern; "but why they left their records open to the air, blest if I can see!"
He raised the torch and flared the light along the shelves, and then he understood. For here, there, copper nails glinted dully, lying in dust that once upon a time had been wood.
"I'm wrong, Beta; I apologize to them," Stern exclaimed. "These were all securely boxed once, but the boxes have gone to pieces long since. Dry-rot, you know. Well, let's see what condition the parchments are in!"
She held the torch while he tried to raise one, but it broke at the slightest touch. Again he assayed, and a third time. Same result.
"Great Scott!" he ejaculated, nonplused. "See what we're up against, will you? We've found 'em and they're ours, but--"
They stood considering a minute. All at once a dull metallic clang echoed heavily through the crypt. Despite herself, the girl shuddered. The eerie depths, the gloom, the skeletons had all conspired to shake her nerves.
"What's that?" she whispered, gripping Allan by the arm.
"That? Oh--nothing! Now how the deuce are we going to get at these--"
"It was something, Allan! But what?"
He grew suddenly silent.
"By Jove--it sounded like--the door--"
"The door? Oh, Allan, quick!"
A sudden, irresistible fear fingered at the strings of the man's heart. At the back of his neck he felt the hair begin to lift. Then he smiled by very strength of will.
"Don't be absurd, Beatrice," he managed to say. "It couldn't be, of course. There's no one here. It--"
But already she was out of the alcove. With the torch held high in air, she stood there peering with wide eyes down the long blackness of the crypt, striving to pierce the dark.