St.George, stepping softly, followed as near as he dared to that hurrying figure, flitting down the dark.

A still narrower hallway connected the main portion of the palace with a shoulder of the south wing, and into this the old man turned and skirted familiarly the narrow sunken pool that ran the length of the floor, drawing the light to its glassy surface and revealing the shadows sent clustering to the indistinguishable roof.
Midway the gallery sprang a narrow stairway, let in the wall and once leading to the ancient armoury, but now disused and piled with rubbish.

Old Malakh went up two steps of this old stairway, turned aside, and slipped away so swiftly that his amazed pursuer caught no more than an after-flutter of his dun-coloured garments.

St.George, his softly-clad feet making no noise upon the stones, bounded forward and saw, through a triangular aperture in the stones, and set so low that a man must crouch upon the step to enter, a yawning place of darkness.
He might very well have been taking his life in his hands, for he could have no idea whether the aperture led to the imperial dungeons or to the imperial rain-water cistern; but St.George instantly bent and slipped down into that darkness, thick with the dust of the flight of the old man.

With the distinctly pleasurable sensation of being still alive he found himself standing upright upon an uneven floor of masonry.