Chapter THE FIRST: The Pit of Darkness

One moment in light, and the next in darkness--down through the gloom of the pit, plumb as a hurled rock, and swift as an arrow, the betrayed soldier fell, precipitated by the treachery of the scholar Aldarin.

The swiftness of his descent took from him all thought or sensation. His flight was suddenly terminated by a subterranean pool of water, into the depths of which he sunk for a moment, and then arose to the surface.

The coldness of the flood, together with an unconquerable stench that assailed his nostrils on all sides, restored the stout yeoman to sensation and feeling.

Spreading his arms instinctively outward, in an attitude of swimming, Rough Robin could neither guess where he was now, or with whom he had been conversing a moment since. His thoughts were wandering and confused, as are the thoughts of a man who dreams when half asleep and half awake.

Still swimming onward through the stagnant waters, Robin cast his eyes overhead, and discerned far, far above, a faintly twinkling light, somewhat of the size of a dim and distant star. He looked again, and it was gone. Around, above, and beneath was darkness: darkness which no eye could pierce, where all was shadow and vacuum--darkness that was almost tangible with its density. The cheek of the brave soldier was chilled by air that, heavy with dampness and mist, seemed as dead and stagnant as the waters in which he swam.

The light glimmering for an instant far above, brought dimly to his mind the person of Aldarin, and the incidents of a moment hence.

And then Robin thought that his fall of terror was only a dream, and, splashing and plunging in the dark waters, he sought to shake off the fearful night-mare that stiffened his sinews and froze his blood.

His extended hand touched a cold and slimy substance, and a small, bright speck shone like a coal of fire through the darkness. Robin grasped the slimy substance: it moved, and a noisome reptile wriggled in his hand.

Now it was that he became aware that the subterranean waters were filled by crawling serpents, who writhed around his legs, twined around his body, and struck his arms and hands at every movement. Their bright eyes sparkled in the waters, and their hissing broke upon the air, as they were thus disturbed by the presence of a strange visitor.

Robin was no coward, neither was he much given to strange fancies; but a feeling of intense terror chilled the very blood around his heart, as the thought came over him that he lay in that fearful place, of which so many legends were told by the vassals of Albarone. The peasantry had many stories of a vast, unearthly pit sunk far in the depths of the castle, where the fiends of darkness were wont to hold their revel and shake the bosom of the earth with the sounds of hellish wassail. Into this dark pit--so ran the legend--had many a shivering wretch been precipitated by the lords of Albarone; and here, unpitied and unknown, had the carcasses of the murdered lain rotting and festering in darkness and oblivion.

As the memory of these strange legends crept over the confused mind of Robin the Rough, he gave utterance to a faint shriek.

It was returned back to him in a thousand echoes, swelling one after the other; now like the sound of repeated claps of thunder, and again dying away fainter and yet fainter, as though many voices were engaged in a hushed and whispering conversation.

“Avaunt thee, fiend! avaunt thee!” cried the stout yeoman, as he still strove to keep himself upon the surface of the water. “Holy Mary, holy Paul, holy Peter!” continued he, between his struggles, “an’ ye save me from these pestilent devils, I will--”

Here the yeoman plunged under the waters, and the sentence was unfinished.

“I will, by St. Withold, I will!” cried he, as he rose to the surface, “place at the altar of the first chapel at which I may arrive after my deliverance, a wax taper, in honor of all three of you.”

The yeoman struck his arms boldly through the flood, as he continued:

“And, an’ ye work out my deliverance, I’ll never ask a boon of ye again.”

Here he gave another bold push.

“I’ll never ask a boon of ye more, but stick like a good christian to my own native saint--even the good St. Withold!”

Here, satisfied that his duty to heaven was done, the yeoman strove to gain some rock, or other object, upon which he might rest his body, much disjointed as it was by his fall of terror.

“It pains me--this wounded hand!” he cried--“But Aldarin my friend will reward me for the pain, some day or other.”

A murmuring sound now met his ears; it was the sound of running waters. Onward and onward the bold yeoman dashed, and louder and yet louder grew the sweet sound of waters in motion.

In a moment he felt a sudden change, from the dull leaden stillness of a stagnated pool, to the quick flow and wild careering of waves in motion. And now he was carried onward with arrowy fleetness, while high above, the roaring of the subterranean stream was returned in a thousand echoes. Now tossed against the sharp, rough points of rocks; now plunged in whirling gullies; now borne on the crests of swelling waves, in darkness and in terror, bold Robin swept on in his career.