"Come, my child," said Oliver's companion. "Come with me, and Gaspard will follow behind and close the gate."
Oliver looked about him with helplessly despairing eyes. Not a soul was in sight but the two. There was no help, no hope; there was nothing to do but to follow. He stepped into the passage-way after the other. The next moment Gaspard closed the gate, and he found himself in inky blackness.
"Take my hand and follow," said he who led; and his voice echoed and reverberated up and down the hollow darkness. Oliver reached blindly out until he touched the unseen hand.
With shuffling feet they moved slowly along the passage-way for the distance of twenty or thirty paces, the American uncle leading the way and holding Oliver by the hand, and Gaspard following so close behind them that sometimes it seemed to Oliver that he could feel the other's hot breath blowing upon his neck. Suddenly Oliver's guide stopped for a moment, and Oliver could hear him feeling with his feet upon the floor in front of him. Then again his echoing voice sounded, reverberating through the darkness. "Take care of the steps," said he, "for they are narrow and slippery."
In answer Oliver felt out instinctively with his foot. His toe touched the edge of a step, the first of a flight that led steeply downward into the darkness.
Down, down they went, Oliver in the middle and the other behind.
"We are at the bottom of the steps," said the echoing voice in front of Oliver, and the next instant he felt the startling jar of missing a step. Although the blackness was impenetrable, it seemed to Oliver that they had now reached a large room, for their footsteps echoed with a hollow sound, as though from high walls and a vaulted roof. His guide laid a hand upon his arm, and at the signal he stopped. Presently he heard Gaspard fumbling and rustling, and the next moment a shower of sparks were struck with flint and steel. As the tinder blazed under his breathing, Oliver saw that Gaspard leaned over a small brazen vase that sat upon the ground. He lighted a match and dropped it into the vase, and instantly a vivid greenish light blazed up, dancing now higher, now lower, and lighting up all the surrounding space. Then Oliver saw that he was indeed in a high, vaulted, cellar-like apartment, without window or other entrance than that through which they had come. In the centre of this vaulted space, and not far from where they stood, was a trap-door of iron, to which was attached an iron ring; a wide, heavy iron bar, fastened to the floor at one end by a hinge and at the other by a staple and padlock, crossed the iron plate, and locked it to the floor. Again Gaspard drew out the two keys, and fitting the second into the padlock, gave it a turn. The padlock gaped. He loosed it from the staple, and swung back the iron bar, creaking and grating upon its rusty hinge; then, clutching the ring in the lid of the trap, he bent his back and heaved. The iron plate swung slowly and heavily up, and as Oliver looked down, he saw a glimmering flight of stone steps that led into the yawning blackness beneath.