Before The Court

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At the bottom we turned again to the right. Just as we turned I heard Harry's voice, quite low:

"There are only a dozen following us, Paul. Now--"

But I shook my head. It would have been mere folly, for, even if we had succeeded in breaking through, we could never have made our way back up the steps. This I told Harry; he admitted reluctantly that I was right.

We now found ourselves in a lane so low and narrow that it was necessary for us to stoop and proceed in single file. Our progress was slow; the guide was continually turning to beckon us on with gestures of impatience.

At length he halted and stood facing us. The guard that followed gathered close in the rear, the guide made a curious upward movement with his arm, and when we stood motionless repeated it several times.

"I suppose he wants us to fly," said Harry with so genuine a tone of sarcasm that I gave an involuntary smile.

The guide's meaning was soon evident. It took some seconds for my eye to penetrate the darkness, and then I saw a spiral stair ascending perpendicularly, apparently carved from the solid rock. Harry must have perceived it at the same moment, for he turned to me with a short laugh:

"Going up? Not for me, thank you. The beggar means for us to go alone."

For a moment I hesitated, glancing round uncertainly at the dusky forms that were ever pressing closer upon us. We were assuredly between the devil and, the deep sea.

Then I said, shrugging my shoulders: "It's no good pulling, Harry. Come on; take a chance. You said it--going up!"

I placed my foot on the first step of the spiral stair.

Harry followed without comment. Up we went together, but slowly. The stair was fearfully steep and narrow, and more than once I barely escaped a fall.

Suddenly I became aware that light was descending on us from above. With every step upward it became brighter, until finally it was as though a noonday sun shone in upon us.

There came an exclamation from Harry, and we ascended faster. I remember that I counted a hundred and sixty steps--and then, as a glimmering of the truth shot through my brain into certainty, I counted no more.

Harry was crowding me from below, and we took the last few steps almost at a run. Then the end, and we stumbled out into a blaze of light and surveyed the surrounding scene with stupefaction and wonder.

It was not new to us; we had seen it before, but from a different angle.

We were on the top of the column in the center of the lake; on the spot where Desiree had whirled in the dance of the sun.