Read Online Lord of the Hollow Dark by Kirk Russell - Free Book Online Page B

closed.
    The rest followed, not many, perhaps nine or ten, some armed with swords or pikes, two or three with morions on their heads, one with an immense heavy gun slung over his shoulder. Others, looking like savages, had only the picks. Every one of them seemed wounded. Knock knock knock.
    At a gesture from the red-bearded man, the litter was set down gently, and the men went on their knees to drink from the little cave pool. Red Beard brought the water in a morion to the woman, but her lips could not be parted. They stood round the litter in a hopeless circle. Now their mouths were moving, yet Sweeney could hear no sound. How could they not see him, so close to hand?
    Presently the litter was lifted up again, and the file turned into the passage by which Sweeney had come. As they vanished down it, the picks and mattocks began knocking again. Knock. Knock. Knock. There came a pause; then a volley of furious pick-strokes; he could imagine the flying stone chips.
    Then another pause; after that, the monotonous knocking, fainter as the file progressed. Knock. Knock. Knock.
    Sweeney crept out of the recess. Hoo ha ha, hoo ha ha. His ankle turned on a stalagmite, and he fell into the dark pool. It was not shallow, for he sank and sank and sank, his lungs filling. Hoo ha ha!

    He woke in a sweat and a hell of a fright. “You’ve had a cream of a nightmare dream and you’ve got the hoo-ha’s coming to you.” Through and through his head the line ran. The gaslight showed him his long narrow bedroom, and he was back from the worst bad trip, and he was alone in the middle of the night.

5
Revelations in the Den
    How pretty the monkey puzzle was, with snowflakes clinging to it! There had been a very light snowfall during the night, and the morning was clear and cold. From her bedroom window, Marina had a fine view of a pond only a few hundred yards distant from the house, and beyond that the mouth of the half-wild Balgrummo Den, with the Fettinch Water from the gray hills splashing down through its boulders. Tremendous larches grew in the Den, and she could see that the jungle of rhododendrons nearly choked the paths. The walls of this little valley were precipitous. What privacy Balgrummo Lodging had! Marina yearned for a long walk with her baby.
    Phlebas had brought her tea and toast and porridge. Now it was nearly nine o’clock, and last night’s dream seemed absurd, though she must ask Mr. Apollinax if it held any mystical significance. Could Mr. Apollinax possibly find time enough to talk with her, despite all those people crowding about him?
    Someone knocked. It was Madame Sesostris, looking not quite so decrepit this morning, and she said, “Time for a constitutional, my dear.”
    “Oh!” Marina started. For behind Madame Sesostris was that dark young woman who almost might have been part of her dream-Marina not having been quite sure that her rescuer hadn’t been insubstantial too. Yet here the girl was, although changed; she nodded gravely to Marina. This morning the young woman had on a coarse black dress that covered her arms and came down almost to her ankles. She wore ugly shapeless shoes. Her long hair was tied with a plain black bow, and her eyes were downcast. “ Buon giorno, signora. ”
    “I understand,” Madame Sesostris was saying, “that you’ve met our maid, Fresca, our Sicilian jewel. She has the room next to yours-or next once removed, rather-and she has sharp ears. She’d not have burst into your room as she did if she’d not thought something might have happened to your baby in the night, when you cried out so long and loud. This is a dreamy house, isn’t it? Some peculiar dreams came to myself last night, and even to the Archvicar. But do come and clear away the cobwebs with a stroll up the Den.”
    Fresca following with the baby in her arms, they made their way through two corridors and down that short flight of stairs. The Archvicar was waiting for them at the foot, in the long gallery