University of Virginia Library

1. CHAPTER THE FIRST.
THE PIT OF DARKNESS.

One moment in light, and the next in darkness
—down thro' the gloom of the pit, plumb as a hurled
rock, and swift as an arrow, the betrayed soldier
fell, precipitated by the treachery of the scholar
Aldarin.

The swiftness of his descent took from him all
thought or sensation. His flight was suddenly
terminated by his body splashing into a subterranean
pool of water, into the depths of which he
sunk for a moment, and then arose to the surface.
The coldness of the flood, together with an unconquerable
stench that assailed his nostrils on
all sides, restored the stout yeoman to sensation
and feeling.

Spreading his arms instinctively outward, in an
attitude of swimming, Rough Robin could neither
guess where he was now, or with whom he had
been conversing a moment since. His thoughts
were wandering and confused, as are the thoughts
of a man who dreams when half asleep and half
awake.

Still swimming onward through the stagnant
waters, Robin cast his eyes overhead, and discerned
far, above, a faintly twinkling light, somewhat
of the size of a dim and distant star. He
looked again, and it was gone. Around, above,
and beneath was darkness: darkness which no
eye could pierce, where all was shadow and vacuum—darkness
that was almost tangible with its
density. The cheek of the brave soldier was
chilled by air that, heavy with dampness and
mist, seemed as dead and stagnant as the waters
in which he swam.

The light glimmering for an instant far above,
brought dimly to his mind the person of Aldarin,
and the incidents of a moment hence.

And then Robin thought that his fall of terror
was only a dream, and, splashing and plunging in
the dark waters, he sought to shake off the fearful
night-mare that stiffened his sinews and froze his
blood.

His extended hand touched a cold and slimy
substance, and a small, bright speck shone like a
coal of fire through the darkness. Robin grasped
the slimy substance: it moved, and a noisome
reptile wriggled in his hand. Now it was that
he became aware that the subterranean waters
were filled by crawling serpents, who writhed
around his legs, twined around his body, and
struck his arms and hands at every movement.
Their bright eyes sparkled in the waters, and their
hissing broke upon the air, as they were thus disturbed
by the presence of a strange visitor.

Robin was no coward, neither was he much
given to strange fancies; but a feeling of awful
and intense terror chilled the very blood around
his heart, as the thought came over him that he
lay in that fearful place, of which so many legends
were told by the vassals of Albarone. The peasantry
had many stories of a vast, unearthly pit
sunk far in the depths of the castle, where the
fiends of darkness were wont to hold their revel,
and shake the bosom of the earth with the sounds
of hellish wassail. Into this dark pit— so ran the
legend—had many a shivering wretch been precipitated
by the lords of Albarone; and here, unpitied
and unknown, had the carcasses of the
murdered lain rotting and festering in darkness
and oblivion.

As the memory of these strange legends crept
over the confused mind of Robin the Rough, he
gave utterance to a faint shriek.

It was returned back to him in a thousand
echoes, swelling one after the other; now like the
sound of repeated claps of thunder, and again dying
away fainter and yet fainter, as though many
voices were engaged in a hushed and whispering
conversation.

“Avaunt thee, fiend! avaunt thee!” cried the
stout yeoman, as he still strove to keep himself
upon the surface of the water. “Holy Mary,
holy Paul, holy Peter!” continued he, between
his struggles, “an' ye save me from these pestilent
devils, I will—”

Here the yeoman plunged under the waters,
and the sentence was unfinished.

“I will, by St. Withold, I will!” cried he, as
he rose to the surface, “place at the altar of the
first chapel at which I may arrive after my deliverance,
a wax taper, in honour of all three o'
you.”

The yeoman struck his arms boldly through the
flood, as he continued:

“And, an' ye work out my deliverance, I'll
never ask a boon of ye again.”

Here he gave another bold push.

“I'll never ask a boon of ye more, but stick
like a good christian to my own native saint—
even the good St. Withold!”

Here, satisfied that his duty to heaven was
done, the yeoman strove to gain some rock, or
other object, upon which he might rest his body,
much disjointed as it was by his fall of terror.

A murmuring sound now met his ears; it was
the sound of running waters. Onward and onward
the bold yeoman dashed, and louder and yet
louder grew the sweet sound of waters in motion.

In a moment he felt a sudden change, from the
dull leaden stillness of a stagnated pool, to the
quick flow and wild careering of waves in motion.
And now he was carried onward with arrowy
fleetness, while high above, the roaring of the subterranean
stream was returned in a thousand
echoes. Now tossed against the sharp, rough
points of rocks; now plunged in whirling gullies;
now borne on the crests of swelling waves, in
darkness and in terror, bold Robin swept on in his
career.