It was past midnight, and the house quiet, when Paul determined to
have another look at the mysterious door at the foot of his closet
stairs. He had sat for more than an hour before his bedroom fire,
after bidding Ah Ben good-night, to make sure that the inmates of
Guir House had retired; and as not a sound had been heard since
locking his door, he sincerely hoped they were asleep. Before
descending into the noisome depths, however, he concluded to climb up
into his window, and have another look at the beautiful panorama of
mountain and woodland shimmering in the meagre light of a hazy sky
and a moon past full. The uncertain outline of a distant horizon; the
interminable stretch of forest, which bore away upon every hand; the
rugged heights, now soft and colorless; the aromatic smell of pine
and fir; the distant murmur of falling water; and the assonant
whispering of wind in the tree tops, had all become strangely
fascinating to him, more so than such things had ever been before.
"Never was a house so situated, so lost to the world, so tightly held
in the lap of unregenerate nature," thought Paul; "no laugh of child,
no shout of man, no bark of dog, nor bellowing beast to break the
stillness of the midnight air; an impenetrable, imperturbable, and
silent wilderness shuts out the busy world, as we know it, forever
and forever. It is a fitting place for such witchery as the old man
seems master of, and I do not wonder that he has chosen it for his
home; but the girl--the poor girl!--she must get away!" He closed the
window, and prepared for his descent into the well.
Removing his shoes, he put on a pair of soft felt slippers, and then,
with candle in his hand, a box of matches and a revolver in his
pocket, entered the closet, and opened the scuttle in the floor. A
mouldy smell rose upon the air, and Henley recoiled at the thought of
what might be in waiting below. He had not the slightest idea of how
he should open the door at the bottom, but would make a careful study
of the situation, hoping that a solution of the difficulty would
present itself. The steps creaked dismally as he placed his weight
upon them, and it was necessary to use extreme caution to avoid
breaking through the more rotten ones. He had not descended more than
a dozen, when there was a terrible crash above his head, and he found
himself in absolute darkness. The trap had fallen as upon the
previous night, he having forgotten to fasten it back, and the wind
had blown out his candle. Henley hastened back up the stairs, fearful
lest the noise had waked some one in the house, and without
relighting his candle threw himself upon the bed to await
developments. After listening for some minutes, and hearing nothing,
he became convinced that no one had been disturbed; and so, creeping
out of bed, and lighting his candle by the dying embers in the
fireplace, started in afresh. This time he was careful to fasten back
the scuttle door, and in doing so discovered that one of the great
iron hinges was loose. It was more than two feet long, and with very
little difficulty he managed to wrench it off, thinking it might
possibly be of service in forcing the door at the bottom. He was
careful this time to let the scuttle down quietly after him, thinking
it safer to do this than to prop it open.