From below, the place where an entrance had then been opened was
clearly visible. The vault had been broken into and had afterwards
been rebuilt from above. The bits of timber which had been used for
the frame during the operation were still there, a rotting and mouldy
nest for hideous spiders and noisome creatures that haunt the dark.
The air was very cold, and was laden with the indescribable smell of
dried slime which belongs to deep wells which have long been almost
quite dry. It was clearly a long time since the little stream had
overflowed its channel, but at the first examination he had made
Malipieri had understood that in former times the water had risen to
within three feet of the vault. Up to that height there was a thin
coating of the dry mud, which peeled off in irregular scales if
lightly touched. The large fragments of masonry that half covered the
floor were all coated in the same way with what had once been a film
of slime.
The air, though cold, could be breathed easily, and the lights did not
grow dim in it as they do in subterranean places where the atmosphere
is foul. The stream of water, flowing swiftly in its deep channel from
under the little arch, brought plentiful ventilation into it. Above,
there was no aperture in the vaulting, but there was one in the
mediaeval masonry that projected into the chamber.
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