University of Virginia Library

2. CHAPTER THE SECOND.
ROBIN ALONE IN THE EARTH-HIDDEN
CAVERN.

Thus was he carried onward for the space of
a quarter of an hour, when, bruised, shattered and
bleeding, he was thrown by the swell of a wave,
high out of the water upon a mass of rocks.

Here he lay for a long while, without sense or
feeling. When he recovered from this swoon, it
was with difficulty that he made the attempt to
collect his thoughts; all was vague, indistinct, and
like a dream.

“St. Withold!” at last he whispered, as if communing
with himself; “St Withold! but this Al
darin is, in good sooth, a most pestilent knave!”

He paused a moment, and then, as if to redouble
his private assurance of Aldarin's villany, he
resumed:

“Aye—a pestilent knave—ugh!”

This last interjection was a suppressed growl,
which he forced through his fixed teeth, as, extending
his arms, with the hands clenched, he
made every demonstration of being engaged in
shaking some imaginary Aldarin, with great danger
to his victim's comfort and life.

“Ugh! Well, here am I, in this pit—this
back-staircase to the devil's dining room—alone,
wet, hungry, and in darkness. St. Withold save
me from all fiends, and I'll take care of aught beside.
Let me see. Mayhap I shall find some
passage from this place. I am on solid rock
that's well. Now for't.”

Cautiously creeping along in the darkness,
he followed the winding of the subterranean flood
by its roaring, until he was suddenly stopped by
an upright stone, which, to his astonishment, he
found to be square in shape, and, feeling it carefully,
he doubted not that it had been shapen by
the chisel of the mason.

Over this stone Robin clambered, and lighted
upon a large chisseled stone laid in a horizontal
position, and over this was placed another stone
of like form; and thus proceeding in his discoveries
our stout yeoman found that a stairway
arose in front of him.

With a shout of joy, bold Robin rushed up the
steps of stone, which, wide and roomy, afforded
his feet firm and substantial footing. Some forty
steps, or more, now lay below him, when raising
his foot to ascend yet higher, the yeoman found it
fall beneath him, and in a moment he stood upon
a floor, which to all likelihood was laid with slabs
of chisseled stone.

Through this place he wandered, now stumbling
against regularly-built walls, now falling over
hidden objects, now passing through doorway after
doorway, and again returning to the head of
the stairway from which he started.

Hours passed. Sometimes Rough Robin would
hear a faint booming sound far above, which he
supposed was the bell of the castle, tolling for
the death of the noble Count Di Albarone, known
throughout Christendom, in a thousand lays, as
the bravest of crusaders, and the gentlest of knights.

The sound of this bell swung upon the breeze for
miles around, whenever it was struck—so Robin
remembered well; yet now, far down in the depths
of the earth, a low moaning noise was all that
reached the ears of the stout yeoman.

With every sinew stiffened, and with every
vein chilled by the damp of subterranean vaults,
scarce able to breathe in the putrid air which had
never known light or sunbeam, his whole frame
weakened by hunger, and his brain confused by
his dream-like adventures, Robin, the stout yeoman,
at last sank down upon a block of rough
stone, where he remained for hours in a state of
half unconsciousness, which finally deepened into
a sound and wholesome slumber.