Donal Grant Author:George MacDonald Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER IV. THE LOST ROOM. Dojstal then took the light from her hand, and looked in. The opening went into the further wall and turned immediately to the l... more »eft. He gave her back the candle, and went in. Arctura followed close. There was a stair in the thickness of the wall, going down steep and straight. It was not wide enough to let them go abreast. " Put your hand on my shoulder, my lady," said Donal. " That will keep us together. If I fall, you must stand stock-still." She put her hand on his shoulder, and they began their descent. The steps were narrow and high, therefore the stair was steep. They had gone down from thirty to thirty-five steps, when they came to a level passage, turning again at right angles to the left. It was twice the width of the stair. Its sides, like those ofthe stair, were of roughly dressed stones, and tmplastered. It led them straight to a strong door. It was locked, and in the rusty lock they could see the key from within. To the right was another door, a smaller one, which stood wide open. They went through, and by a short passage entered an opener space. Here on one side there seemed to be no wall, and they stood for a moment afraid to move lest they shoiild tumble into darkness. But sending the light about, and feeling with hands and feet, they soon came to an idea of the place they were in. It was a little gallery, with arches on one side opening into a larger place, the character of which they could only conjecture, for nearly all they could determine was, that'it went below and rose above where they stood. On the other side was a plain wall, such as they had had on both sides of them. They had been speaking in awe-filled whispers, and were now in silence endeavouring to send their sight through the darkness beyond the arches. ...« less