Now and again at irregular intervals there was a
prolonged booming, which could only come from a wave breaking in a
confined place. The recollection then came to me of the proximity of the
church to the top of the beetling cliff, and of the half-sunk cavern
entrances which pierced it. With the gleam of my lamp to guide me, I went through and round the whole
place. There were many massive tombs, mostly rough-hewn from great slabs
or blocks of stone. Some of them were marble, and the cutting of all was
ancient. So large and heavy were some of them that it was a wonder to me
how they could ever have been brought to this place, to which the only
entrance was seemingly the narrow, tortuous stairway by which I had come. At last I saw near one end of the crypt a great chain hanging. Turning
the light upward, I found that it depended from a ring set over a wide
opening, evidently made artificially. It must have been through this
opening that the great sarcophagi had been lowered. Directly underneath the hanging chain, which did not come closer to the
ground than some eight or ten feet, was a huge tomb in the shape of a
rectangular coffer or sarcophagus. It was open, save for a huge sheet of
thick glass which rested above it on two thick balks of dark oak, cut to
exceeding smoothness, which lay across it, one at either end. On the far
side from where I stood each of these was joined to another oak plank,
also cut smooth, which sloped gently to the rocky floor. Should it be
necessary to open the tomb, the glass could be made to slide along the
supports and descend by the sloping planks. Naturally curious to know what might be within such a strange receptacle,
I raised the lantern, depressing its lens so that the light might fall
within. Then I started back with a cry, the lantern slipping from my nerveless
hand and falling with a ringing sound on the great sheet of thick glass. Within, pillowed on soft cushions, and covered with a mantle woven of
white natural fleece sprigged with tiny sprays of pine wrought in gold,
lay the body of a woman--none other than my beautiful visitor. She was
marble white, and her long black eyelashes lay on her white cheeks as
though she slept. Without a word or a sound, save the sounds made by my hurrying feet on
the stone flooring, I fled up the steep steps, and through the dim
expanse of the church, out into the bright sunlight. I found that I had
mechanically raised the fallen lamp, and had taken it with me in my
flight. My feet naturally turned towards home. It was all instinctive. The new
horror had--for the time, at any rate--drowned my mind in its mystery,
deeper than the deepest depths of thought or imagination. BOOK IV: UNDER THE FLAGSTAFF


RUPERT'S JOURNAL--_Continued_. _May_ 1, 1907. For some days after the last adventure I was in truth in a half-dazed
condition, unable to think sensibly, hardly coherently. Indeed, it was
as much as I could do to preserve something of my habitual appearance and
manner. However, my first test happily came soon, and when I was once
through it I reacquired sufficient self-confidence to go through with my
purpose. Gradually the original phase of stupefaction passed, and I was
able to look the situation in the face. I knew the worst now, at any
rate; and when the lowest point has been reached things must begin to
mend. Still, I was wofully sensitive regarding anything which might
affect my Lady of the Shroud, or even my opinion of her. I even began to
dread Aunt Janet's Second-Sight visions or dreams. These had a fatal
habit of coming so near to fact that they always made for a danger of
discovery. I had to realize now that the Lady of the Shroud might indeed
be a Vampire--one of that horrid race that survives death and carries on
a life-in-death existence eternally and only for evil. Indeed, I began
to _expect_ that Aunt Janet would ere long have some prophetic insight to
the matter. She had been so wonderfully correct in her prophetic
surmises with regard to both the visits to my room that it was hardly
possible that she could fail to take cognizance of this last development. But my dread was not justified; at any rate, I had no reason to suspect
that by any force or exercise of her occult gift she might cause me
concern by the discovery of my secret. Only once did I feel that actual
danger in that respect was close to me. That was when she came early one
morning and rapped at my door. When I called out, "Who is that? What is
it?" she said in an agitated way:

"Thank God, laddie, you are all right! Go to sleep again." Later on, when we met at breakfast, she explained that she had had a
nightmare in the grey of the morning. She thought she had seen me in the
crypt of a great church close beside a stone coffin; and, knowing that
such was an ominous subject to dream about, came as soon as she dared to
see if I was all right. Her mind was evidently set on death and burial,
for she went on:

"By the way, Rupert, I am told that the great church on time top of the
cliff across the creek is St. Sava's, where the great people of the
country used to be buried. I want you to take me there some day. We
shall go over it, and look at the tombs and monuments together. I really
think I should be afraid to go alone, but it will be all right if you are
with me." This was getting really dangerous, so I turned it aside:

"Really, Aunt Janet, I'm afraid it won't do. If you go off to weird old
churches, and fill yourself up with a fresh supply of horrors, I don't
know what will happen. You'll be dreaming dreadful things about me every
night and neither you nor I shall get any sleep." It went to my heart to
oppose her in any wish; and also this kind of chaffy opposition might
pain her. But I had no alternative; the matter was too serious to be
allowed to proceed. Should Aunt Janet go to the church, she would surely
want to visit the crypt. Should she do so, and there notice the
glass-covered tomb--as she could not help doing--the Lord only knew what
would happen. She had already Second-Sighted a woman being married to
me, and before I myself knew that I had such a hope. What might she not
reveal did she know where the woman came from? It may have been that her
power of Second Sight had to rest on some basis of knowledge or belief,
and that her vision was but some intuitive perception of my own
subjective thought. But whatever it was it should be stopped--at all
hazards. This whole episode set me thinking introspectively, and led me gradually
but imperatively to self-analysis--not of powers, but of motives. I
found myself before long examining myself as to what were my real
intentions. I thought at first that this intellectual process was an
exercise of pure reason; but soon discarded this as inadequate--even
impossible. Reason is a cold manifestation; this feeling which swayed
and dominated me is none other than passion, which is quick, hot, and
insistent.