The rat's snout and ragged whiskers protruded cautiously. It moved
forward and then hesitated, drew back. Then the animal began to act in a
singular and unaccountable manner—almost as though it were dancing,
Carson thought. It moved tentatively forward, retreated again. It would
give a little dart forward and be brought up short, then leap back
hastily, as though—the simile flashed into Carson's mind—a snake were
coiled before the burrow, alert to prevent the rat's escape. But there
was nothing there save the little cross Carson had scratched in the
dust.
No doubt it was Carson himself who blocked the rat's escape, for he was
standing within a few feet of the burrow. He moved forward, and the
animal hurriedly retreated out of sight.
His interest piqued, Carson found a stick and poked it exploringly into
the hole. As he did so his eye, close to the wall, detected something
strange about the stone slab just above the rat burrow. A quick glance
around its edge confirmed his suspicion. The slab was apparently
movable.
Carson examined it closely, noticed a depression on its edge which would
afford a handhold. His fingers fitted easily into the groove, and he
pulled tentatively. The stone moved a trifle and stopped. He pulled
harder, and with a sprinkling of dry earth the slab swung away from the
wall as though on hinges.
A black rectangle, shoulder-high, gaped in the wall. From its depths a
musty, unpleasant stench of dead air welled out, and involuntarily
Carson retreated a step. Suddenly he remembered the monstrous tales of
Abbie Prinn and the hideous secrets she was supposed to have kept hidden
in her house. Had he stumbled upon some hidden retreat of the long-dead
witch?
Before entering the dark gap he took the precaution of obtaining a
flashlight from upstairs. Then he cautiously bent his head and stepped
into the narrow, evil-smelling passage, sending the flashlight's beam
probing out before him.
He was in a narrow tunnel, scarcely higher than his head, and walled and
paved with stone slabs. It ran straight ahead for perhaps fifteen feet,
and then broadened out into a roomy chamber. As Carson stepped into the
underground room—no doubt a hidden retreat of Abbie Prinn's, a
hiding-place, he thought, which nevertheless could not save her on the
day the fright-crazed mob had come raging along Derby Street—he caught
his breath in a gasp of amazement. The room was fantastic, astonishing.
It was the floor which held Carson's gaze. The dull gray of the circular
wall gave place here to a mosaic of varicolored stone, in which blues
and greens and purples predominated—indeed, there were none of the
warmer colors. There must have been thousands of bits of colored stone
making up that pattern, for none was larger than a walnut. And the
mosaic seemed to follow some definite pattern, unfamiliar to Carson;
there were curves of purple and violet mingled with angled lines of
green and blue, intertwining in fantastic arabesques. There were
circles, triangles, a pentagram, and other, less familiar, figures. Most
of the lines and figures radiated from a definite point: the center of
the chamber, where there was a circular disk of dead black stone perhaps
two feet in diameter.
It was very silent. The sounds of the cars that occasionally went past
overhead in Derby Street could not be heard. In a shallow alcove in the
wall Carson caught a glimpse of markings on the walls, and he moved
slowly in that direction, the beam of his light traveling up and down
the walls of the niche.
The marks, whatever they were, had been daubed upon the stone long ago,
for what was left of the cryptic symbols was indecipherable. Carson saw
several partly-effaced hieroglyphics which reminded him of Arabic, but
he could not be sure. On the floor of the alcove was a corroded metal
disk about eight feet in diameter, and Carson received the distinct
impression that it was movable. But there seemed no way to lift it.
He became conscious that he was standing in the exact center of the
chamber, in the circle of black stone where the odd design centered.
Again he noticed the utter silence. On an impulse he clicked off the ray
of his flashlight. Instantly he was in dead blackness.
At that moment a curious idea entered his mind. He pictured himself at
the bottom of a pit, and from above a flood was descending, pouring down
the shaft to engulf him. So strong was this impression that he actually
fancied he could hear a muffled thundering, the roar of the cataract.
Then, oddly shaken, he clicked on the light, glanced around swiftly. The
drumming, of course, was the pounding of his blood, made audible in the
complete silence—a familiar phenomenon. But, if the place was so
still——
The thought leaped into his mind, as though suddenly thrust into his
consciousness. This would be an ideal place to work. He could have the
place wired for electricity, have a table and chair brought down, use an
electric fan if necessary—although the musty odor he had first noticed
seemed to have disappeared completely. He moved to the tunnel mouth, and
as he stepped from the room he felt an inexplicable relaxation of his
muscles, although he had not realized that they had been contracted. He
ascribed it to nervousness, and went upstairs to brew black coffee and
write to his landlord in Boston about his discovery.