groinings like some queer souterrain upon a clearer place--a lamp-lit place, evidently--some sort of still-room or cellar, she thought, for presently she could see great casks and chests along its rough stonework. This she negotiated, steering for another opening exactly opposite, but before she quite reached that she heard voices from beyond a nail-studded door that stood ajar on her right--angry Russian voices raised in execration or denunciation--she knew not which, for she had never been able to learn Russian well enough to follow a rapid conversation, nor had she tried very strenuously to do so, but in her over-excited condition the whistling syllables became, curiously enough, almost plain to her. “She? Help us?” the raucous, _vòdka_-soaked accents were saying. “This stranger from among strangers! Bah! You don’t believe it, do you? Did she ever do any of us a kindness, or throw us a look, even? We are not as good as dogs to her. But wait, she’ll find us to be wolves, too, on occasion. Have patience, little fathers; our turn will come soon now; and were it not for the Boy--for Basil-Vassilièvitch, too, who cares for us in his way--when she lets him--we’d show her what we can do! Let her not tempt us too far, however--or we’ll make her dance in the moonlight!” There was a chorus of coarse laughter, and then a short silence. Making herself exceeding small, Laurence flattened herself against the spring of the huge stone arch behind her. Who could that be who had just spoken words of sedition within Tverna Castle? Who were they who had threatened her--and what--what was that about “dancing in the moonlight?” Her servants, the _staròstá_, _mujiks_, perhaps? Who could it have been? she asked herself. She felt that in another second she would ask aloud, and then cry out for help; and yet she knew instinctively that no sound could pass her throat, her parched lips. Suppose the speakers were to come out and see her there--she, the abhorred one? Would they tear her to pieces? She scarcely doubted it, and as noiselessly as she could she slipped into a near-by recess, trying still further to conceal herself. Encountering wood instead of stone, her hand groped feverishly for some means of escape--and, yes, was luck going to be with her at last?--her shaking fingers found a polished knob which yielded at her touch. A slight creak that brought the goose-flesh all over her for fear it should be heard, and the panel of a door receded, showing a lighted staircase, clean and garnished for constant use, as every inch of it denoted.