Midway the gallery sprang a narrow stairway, let in the wall and
once leading to the ancient armoury, but now disused and piled with
rubbish. Old Malakh went up two steps of this old stairway, turned
aside, and slipped away so swiftly that his amazed pursuer caught no
more than an after-flutter of his dun-coloured garments. St. George,
his softly-clad feet making no noise upon the stones, bounded
forward and saw, through a triangular aperture in the stones, and
set so low that a man must crouch upon the step to enter, a yawning
place of darkness.
He might very well have been taking his life in his hands, for he
could have no idea whether the aperture led to the imperial dungeons
or to the imperial rain-water cistern; but St. George instantly bent
and slipped down into that darkness, thick with the dust of the
flight of the old man. With the distinctly pleasurable sensation of
being still alive he found himself standing upright upon an uneven
floor of masonry. He thrust out his arms and touched sides of mossy
rock.
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