Chapter THE SECOND: Robin Alone in the Earth-Hidden Cavern

Thus was he carried onward for the space of a quarter of an hour, when, bruised, shattered and bleeding, he was thrown by the swell of a wave, high out of the water upon a mass of rocks.

Here he lay for a long while, without sense or feeling. When he recovered from this swoon, it was with difficulty that he made the attempt to collect his thoughts; all was vague, indistinct, and like a dream.

“St. Withold!” at last he whispered, as if communing with himself; “St. Withold! but this Aldarin is, in good sooth, a most pestilent knave!”

He paused a moment, and then, as if to redouble his private assurance of Aldarin’s villany, he resumed:

“Aye--a pestilent knave--ugh!”

This last interjection was a suppressed growl, which he forced through his fixed teeth, as, extending his arms, with the hands clenched, he made every demonstration of being engaged in shaking some imaginary Aldarin, with great danger to his victim’s comfort and life.

“Ugh! Well, here am I, in this pit--this back-staircase to the devil’s dining room--alone, wet, hungry, and in darkness. St. Withold save me from all fiends, and I’ll take care of aught beside. Let me see. Mayhap I shall find some passage from this place. I am on solid rock that’s well. Now for’t.”

Cautiously creeping along in the darkness, he followed the winding of the subterranean flood by its roaring, until he was suddenly stopped by an upright stone, which, to his astonishment, he found to be square in shape, and, feeling it carefully, he doubted not that it had been shapen by the chisel of the mason.

Over this stone Robin clambered, and alighted upon a large chisseled stone laid in a horizontal position, and over this was placed another stone of like form; and thus proceeding in his discoveries our stout yeoman found that a stairway arose in front of him.

With a shout of joy, bold Robin rushed up the steps of stone, which, wide and roomy, afforded his feet firm and substantial footing. Some forty steps, or more, now lay below him, when raising his foot to ascend yet higher, the yeoman found it fall beneath him, and in a moment he stood upon a floor, which to all likelihood was laid with slabs of chisseled stone.

Through this place he wandered, now stumbling against regularly-built walls, now falling over hidden objects, now passing through doorway after doorway, and again returning to the head of the stairway from which he started.

Hours passed. Sometimes Rough Robin would hear a faint booming sound far above, which he supposed was the bell of the castle, tolling for the death of the noble Count Di Albarone, known throughout Christendom, in a thousand lays, as the bravest of crusaders, and the gentlest of knights. The sound of this bell swung upon the breeze for miles around, whenever it was struck--so Robin remembered well; yet now, far down in the depths of the earth, a low moaning noise was all that reached the ears of the stout yeoman.

With every sinew stiffened, and with every vein chilled by the damp of subterranean vaults, scarce able to breathe in the putrid air which had never known light of sunbeam, his whole frame weakened by hunger, and his brain confused by his dream-like adventures, Robin, the stout yeoman, at last sank down upon a block of rough stone, where he remained for hours in a state of half unconsciousness, which finally deepened into a sound and wholesome slumber.