Suddenly I observed, what I had not noticed before, that there was a narrow aperture in the rocky wall.  I took up the lamp and examined it; the aperture led to a passage.  Now, I was still sufficiently sensible to remember that it is not pleasant, in such a situation as ours was, to have passages running into one’s bed-chamber from no one knows where.  If there are passages, people can come up them; they can come up when one is asleep.  Partly to see where it went to, and partly from a restless desire to be doing something, I followed the passage.  It led to a stone stair, which I descended; the stair ended in another passage, or rather tunnel, also hewn out of the bed-rock, and running, so far as I could judge, exactly beneath the gallery that led to the entrance of our rooms, and across the great central cave.  I went on down it:  it was as silent as the grave, but still, drawn by some sensation or attraction that I cannot define, I followed on, my stockinged feet falling without noise on the smooth and rocky floor.  When I had traversed some fifty yards of space, I came to another passage running at right angles, and here an awful thing happened to me:  the sharp draught caught my lamp and extinguished it, leaving me in utter darkness in the bowels of that mysterious place.  I took a couple of strides forward so as to clear the bisecting tunnel, being terribly afraid lest I should turn up it in the dark if once I got confused as to the direction, and then paused to think.  What was I to do?  I had no match; it seemed awful to attempt that long journey back through the utter gloom, and yet I could not stand there all night, and, if I did, probably it would not help me much, for in the bowels of the rock it would be as dark at midday as at midnight.  I looked back over my shoulder—­not a sight or a sound.  I peered forward into the darkness:  surely, far away, I saw something like the faint glow of fire.  Perhaps it was a cave where I could get a light—­at any rate, it was worth investigating.  Slowly and painfully I crept along the tunnel, keeping my hand against its wall, and feeling at every step with my foot before I put it down, fearing lest I should fall into some pit.  Thirty paces—­there was a light, a broad light that came and went, shining through curtains!  Fifty paces—­it was close at hand!  Sixty—­oh, great heaven!

I was at the curtains, and they did not hang close, so I could see clearly into the little cavern beyond them.  It had all the appearance of being a tomb, and was lit up by a fire that burnt in its centre with a whitish flame and without smoke.  Indeed, there, to the left, was a stone shelf with a little ledge to it three inches or so high, and on the shelf lay what I took to be a corpse; at any rate, it looked like one, with something white thrown over it.  To the right was a similar shelf, on which lay some broidered coverings.  Over the fire bent the figure of a woman; she was sideways to me and facing the corpse, wrapped in a dark mantle that hid her like a nun’s cloak.  She seemed to be staring at the flickering flame.  Suddenly, as I was trying to make up my mind what to do, with a convulsive movement that somehow gave an impression of despairing energy, the woman rose to her feet and cast the dark cloak from her.