"
"Put the boards in their place again," Malipieri said. "It is growing
late."
It was done in a few moments, but now the dismal roar of the water
came up very distinctly through the covering. Malipieri had been in
many excavations, and in mines, too, but did not remember that he had
ever felt so strongly the vague sense of apprehension that filled him
now. There is something especially gloomy and mysterious about the
noise of unexplained water heard at a great depth under the earth and
coming out of darkness. Even the rough men with him felt that.
"It is bad to hear," observed Masin, putting one more stone upon the
boards, as if the weight could keep the sound down.
"You may say that!" answered Toto. "And in this tomb, too!"
They went on, in the same order as before. The passage to the dry well
had been so much enlarged that by bending down they could walk to the
top of the rope ladder. Malipieri went down first, with his lantern.
Toto followed, and while Masin was descending, stood looking at the
bones of the dead mason, and at the skull that grinned horribly in the
uncertain yellow glare.
He took a half-burnt candle from his pocket, and some sulphur matches,
and made a light for himself, with which he carefully examined the
bones. Malipieri watched him.
"The man who was drowned over sixty years ago," said the architect.
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