g, from where they hung above the door of oak, had little more to
do than fall from their crannies, slanting ever so slightly, to find
themselves safe from man in the velvet darkness, that lay between
cliffs so lonely they were almost strangers to Echo. And here they
floated upon errands far from our knowledge; while the travellers
coming along the rocky ledge between destruction and shelter, knocked
on the oaken door.

The sound of their knocking boomed huge and slow through the house as
though they had struck the door of the very mountain. And no one came.
And then Rodriguez saw dimly in the darkness the great handle of a
bell, carved like a dragon running down the wall: he pulled it and a
cry of pain arose from the basement of the house.

Even Morano wondered. It was like a terrible spirit in distress. It was
long before Rodriguez dare touch the handle again. Could it have been
the bell? He felt the iron handle and the iron chain that went up from
it. How could it have been the bell! The bell had not sounded: he had
not pulled hard enough: that scream was fortuitous. The night on that
rocky ledge had jangled his nerves. He pulled again and more firmly.
The answering scream was more terrible. Rodriguez could doubt no
longer, as he sprang back from the bell-handle, that with the chain he
had pulled he inflicted some unknown agony.

The scream had awakened slow steps that now came towards the
travellers, down corridors, as it sounded, of stone. And then chains
fell on stone and the door of oak was opened by some one older than
what man hopes to come to, with small, peaked lips as those of some
woodland thing.

"Senores," the old one said, "the Professor welcomes you."

They stood and stared at his age, and Morano blurted uncouthly what
both of them felt. "You are old, grandfather," he said.

"Ah, Senores," the old man sighed, "the Professor does not allow me to
be young. I have been here years and years but he never allowed it. I
have served him well but it is still the same. I say to him, 'Master, I
have served you long ...' but he interrupts me for he will have none of
youth. Young servants go among the villages, he says. And so, and so..."

"You do not think your master can give you youth!" said Rodriguez.

The old man knew that he had talked too much, voicing that grievance
again of which even the rocks were weary. "Yes," he said briefly, and
bowed and led the way into the house. In one of the corridors runn