Masin lighted one of the lamps, which they generally left at
that place, and set it on a stone.
Malipieri began to go up, his stick in his right hand, the lantern in
his left.
"Let me go first, sir," said Masin, trying to pass him.
"Nonsense!" Malipieri answered sharply, and went on.
Masin kept as close to him as possible. He had picked up the lightest
of the drilling irons for a weapon. It must have weighed at least ten
pounds and it was a yard long. In such a hand as Masin's a blow from
it would have broken a man's bones like pipe stems.
The wall was about eight feet thick, and when Malipieri got to the
other end of the hole he stopped and looked down, holding out his
lantern at arm's length. He could see nothing unusual, and he heard no
sound, except the gurgle of the little black stream that ran ten feet
below him. He began to descend. The masonry was very irregular, and
sloped outwards towards the ground, so that some of the irregularities
made rough steps here and there, which he knew by heart. Below,
several large fragments of Roman brick and cement lay here and there,
where they had fallen in the destruction of the original building. It
was not hard to get down, and the space was not large. It was bounded
by the old wall on one side, and most of the other was taken up by a
part of a rectangular mass of masonry, of rough mediaeval
construction, which projected inward.
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