He thrust out his arms and touched sides of mossy rock.

Then just before him a pale flame flickered.

The old man had kindled a little taper that hardly did more than make shallow hollows in the darkness through which he moved.
It was easy to follow now, and St.George went breathlessly on past the rudely-hewn walls and giant pillars of that hidden way.
He might have been lost with ease in any of the lower processes of the palace which they had that morning visited; but he could not be deceived about the chambers which he had once seen, and this subterranean course was new to him.

Was it, he wondered, new to Olivia, and to Jarvo?
Else why had it been omitted in that morning's search?
And was this strange guide going on at random, or did he know--something?
A suspicion leaped to St.George's mind that made his heart beat.

The king--might he be down here after all, and might this weird old man know where?
His own consciousness became chiefly conjecture, and every nerve was alert in the pursuit; not the less because he realized that if he were to lose this strange conductor who went on before, either in secure knowledge or in utter madness, he himself might wander for the rest of his life in that nether world.
Past grim latchless doors sealing, with appropriate gestures, their forgotten secrets, past outlying passages winding into the heart of the mountain, past niches filled with shapeless crumbling rubbish they hurried--the mad old man and his bewildered pursuer.