She looked as if she had just glided up that
slope from a region so dark that a spectre might haunt it all day long.
But Beauchamp was not of a fanciful disposition, and instead of taking
her for a spectre, he accosted her with easy insolence!
"Tell me how to get out, my pretty girl, and I'll give you a kiss."
Seized with a terror she did not understand, Annie darted into the
cavern between them, and sped down its steep into the darkness which
lay there like a lurking beast. A few yards down, however, she turned
aside, through a low doorway, into a vault. Beauchamp rushed after her,
passed her, and fell over a great stone lying in the middle of the way.
Annie heard him fall, sprung forth again, and, flying to the upper
light, found her way out, and left the discourteous knight a safe
captive, fallen upon that horrible stair.--A horrible stair it was: up
and down those steps, then steep and worn, now massed into an incline
of beaten earth, had swarmed, for months together, a multitude of naked
children, orphaned and captive by the sword, to and from the troughs at
which they fed like pigs, amidst the laughter of the lord of the castle
and his guests; while he who passed down them to the dungeon beyond,
had little chance of ever retracing his steps upward to the light.
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