The place had a lonesome, forlorn look, even more than usually
belongs to a deserted house, though such might not have been its aspect to
other than my unaccustomed Western eyes.
Turning, I made my way down the short staircase, and was about to leave
the house when the third door, as yet unopened, caught my eye. I drew with
some difficulty the rusted bolt, and found myself at the head of a steep
flight of stairs, seemingly longer than that which I had just descended.
It led to the cellar, and though the afternoon was getting on, I thought I
would finish my exploration, and therefore went down, though repelled by
the close and peculiarly damp air. The cellar was blasted and hewn in the
solid rock to a depth which, considering the extreme hardness of the
stone, seemed remarkable in a house so unpretending. A dim light made its
way through a narrow window at each end and fell upon the stone floor. I
walked forward, looking up at the windows, but I had not taken ten steps
before I recoiled with a start. At my feet lay a pit, seemingly of
considerable depth, and filled with water to within four feet of the top.
The cellar did not lie under the kitchen, but only under the two front
rooms and the passage, and this pit occupied the whole length and fully
half the breadth of the space of the rooms above, and, what was more
peculiar, seemed to extend even farther forward than the house itself.
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