"I should have been mightily surprised if it had not," remarked Mr Howard; "and you took it for supernatural interference, of course."
"And another time," went on the Bohemian calmly, "we let a man down with ropes. We had fifty yards of rope, but it was not enough. Next day we came back with double as much rope; but when we had lost sight of the man, we heard him calling up, for he had taken fright: and after that we did not meddle with the place again."
"Bah!" said Mr Howard, "in ten years the measurement of the depth will be reduced to a mathematical calculation."
"That is what papa says," observed Gretchen; "and he believes, too, that there is some outlet below."
"That is the secret of the mountains, Fräulein; and the mountains do not chatter. According to the story of the brigands' treasure, some such passage would need to exist. I know of one story only which seems to confirm it. My father was told by an old peasant, who died at ninety years of age, that a brother of his had a dog whom he wanted to be rid of, and so he just took him up to the wood and knocked him into the hole. He was sure never to see him again; but ten days after that, as he was leaving his house in the morning, there on the doorstep the dog was sitting, nothing but skin and bone, and scratches all over. Nobody knows where he came from. The peasants said he was not good enough for the devils, and that therefore they let him go again."
"Too thin for roasting," suggested Kurt. "They might have made broth of him, though."
But even Kurt's irreverence failed to disturb the gravity of the others. No story of Gaura Dracului sounded too extravagant as long as Gaura Dracului lay before the listeners' eyes. In Gretchen's head there was ringing the air of the Bohemian's melancholy song, and the monotonous refrain –
"Beware, beware!
Of Gaura Dracului beware!"
It seemed to her that that Roman woman, sacrificed to blind jealousy, should henceforward, from a legendary myth, become to her an authentic personage. Had she not stood beside the hapless victim's grave?
It was a place to pursue a man in his dreams, to haunt him even by broad daylight. The shiver of interest which it awoke was both exquisite and painful. While longing to be away, one yet was loath to leave it. Some such feeling it was which kept them all silent now as they stood around it. The fascination seemed to be strongest upon István. He slowly paced round the edge, with his eye fixed on the blackness below, stepping sometimes so perilously near to the deceitful brink as to deal nervous starts to his companions, and to call forth many an invocation to the Heilige Jungfrau of the Wunderbaum at Choteborschwitz from the scared Bohemian.
"Tell me," said Gretchen to the guide, "have you ever heard of any other accident happening here, except the death of your grandfather?"
"Never any other, Fräulein: there may have been accidents here, or there may not. Those who go down there do not come back to tell us stories. You know what the peasants here say. I told you of their superstition."
"A victim every century," said Tolnay, half aloud.
"And when was it that your grandfather was killed?" asked Mr Howard.
