Pabo, the Priest: A NovelBaring-Gould, S. (Sabine)
History
Pabo, the Priest: A Novel
Baring-Gould, S. (Sabine)
Great Britain -- History -- Henry I, 1100-1135 -- Fiction; Priests -- Fiction; Wales -- Fiction
The passage bulged and became a hall, and here it seemed to him that he
saw some blue object before him. He stood, uncertain what it was, and
whether to venture towards it. Presently he discovered that it was a
patch of light, a reflection of some of the moonlit vapor in the sky
falling through a small orifice far, far above in a dome, the height of
which he could not measure. In contrast with the yellow flame of his
candle, this feeble spot had looked blue as a turquoise. He tried to
recollect the plan sketched on the board, and he did remember that this
hall was there indicated, with _Ibi lumen_ scrawled beside it. He
traversed this hall and entered another passage, or a continuance of the
same, beyond. Then he put his hand to his brow, and endeavored to recall
the sketch of the mine--and felt that it was gone from him.
While lying in prison at Careg Cennen he had recalled it distinctly--he
now, indeed, remembered that there was a direction _in sinistram_ or _ad
dextram_, he could not now say which, and where the turn was to be made.
However, there surely could be no mistake--as he had the way open
before him.
Hitherto he had felt no fear. Possibly his incarceration in partial
darkness had accustomed him to some such places; he pushed on, moreover,
animated with hope. And he placed some confidence in his blessed taper
from the church of the patron of his family and tribe.
But suddenly he sprang back, and only just in time. In front of him,
occupying the whole width of the passage, was a hole. How deep it was he
had some means of judging by hearing the bound and rebound of a stone
dislodged by his foot.
"_Cave puteum_;" now he recalled the warning.
He crept forward cautiously, and extended his light over the gulf. It
illumined the sides but a little way down. Judging by the time a stone
took in falling before it plashed into water, it must have been about
fifty feet in depth.
The well was not large at the mouth. And now Pabo distinctly remembered
that the _Thesaurus_ was not far beyond it.
It did not occur to him to return. He was so near the goal that reach it
he must.
He examined attentively the sides. Not a thread of a track existed
whereby the abyss might be skirted. There were no pieces of wood about
by means of which it could be bridged.
The well's mouth was but four feet in diameter. Surely he could leap
that!
He stepped back two, three strides, and bounded. He reached the ground
beyond, but in the spring his light was extinguished.
The snuff was glowing, and he blew on it, but it would not flame.
"It matters not," said he. "I have my tinder and steel; I can relight
it. Now on, on to the gold!"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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