at the end he would come back, bringing visitors.  Oh, many visitors! for he was rich, and the house had room for all.  There were singers—­he loves music—­and men who played all day at cards, and women who made me jealous.  But he would only laugh and say, ‘Wait, little one.’  So I waited, and in the end they all died.  Rosa said it was the yellow fever; but no.”  She held up both hands, and made pretence to pour something from an imaginary bottle into an imaginary glass.  “He can kill with one tiny drop.  In his study he keeps a machine which makes water into ice.  Rosa would carry round the ice with little glasses of curacoa, after the coffee was served; and all would say:  ’What wonders are these?  Ice in Mortallone!’ and would drink his health.  But he never touched the ice.  You tell that to your friends, little boy.  But it will not save them:  for he will find some other way.”

As we went up the woods these awful confidences poured from her like childish prattle, interrupted only by little ripples of laughter, half shy, half silly, and altogether horrible to hear.  I hung back, divided between the impulse to tear myself away and the fearful fascination of listening—­between the urgent need to find and warn my friends, and the forlorn hope to extract from her something that might save them.  The toil of the climb had bathed me in sweat, and yet I shivered.

I halted.  We were close under the summit of the ridge, and had reached a passing clearing where, between the trees, as I turned about, I could see the whole gorge in shadow at my feet, the sunlight warm on its upper eastern slopes, and beyond these the sea.  In half an hour—­in twenty minutes, maybe—­I might reach the valley there below, and at least cry my warning.  I faced round again to my companion.

She had vanished.

My mouth grew dry of a sudden.  Was she a ghost?  And her prattling talk—­the voice yet singing in my brain—­

“Little boy!  Little boy!”

I parted the tall ferns.  Beyond them a small hand beckoned, and, following it, I came face to face with a wall of naked rock from which she lifted aside the creepers over a deep cleft—­a cleft wide enough to admit a man’s body if he turned sideways and stooped a little.

She clapped her hands at my astonishment.  “You like my bower?” she asked gleefully.  “Ah, but wait, and I will show you wonders!  No one knows of it, not even Rosa.”

She wriggled her way through the cleft.  I peered in, and went after her cautiously, expecting, as the curtain of creepers fell behind me, to find myself in a dark cave or grotto.  Dark it was, to be sure, but not utterly dark; and to my amazement, as my eyes grew accustomed to the gloom, the faint light came from ahead of me and seemed to strike upwards from the bowels of the earth.

“Do not be afraid, little boy!  But hold your head low; and look to your feet now, for it is steep hereabouts.”