“No, no!  We’re too impatient!  We can’t wait, can we?” she exclaimed.  “Let’s go.  Let’s get the ghosts single-handed, you and I. If we win we’ll demand a specially large bronze cross to be struck for us.”

“Yes,” he agreed with an affectation of humor that made him feel ludicrous.  He always felt ludicrous when he tried to be humorous.

“Come on!” said Marta, going to the stairway.

He extended his hand to take the lantern with an “If you please!”

“No.  When we approach the enemy I’ll let you lead,” she replied, refusing the offer.  “I’ll be only too glad then; but these stairs are very tricky if you don’t know them.  Keep watch!” she warned him as she started to descend, picking her way slowly.

Once in the tunnel she held the lantern a little back of her in her right hand, which threw a shadow to the left on the side of the panel door.  She was walking very fast, too fast to please Bouchard.  In the swinging rays he could not fly-speck the surroundings with the care that he desired.  Yet how could he ask her to slacken her pace?  This she did of her own accord before they had gone far.

“Isn’t it damp and deathlike?  Think of it!” she exclaimed.  “No ray of sunlight has been in here since the tunnel was dug—­no, not even then; for probably it was dug after the castle was built.  Think of the stories these walls could tell after the silence of centuries!  Think of the prisoners driven along at the point of the halberd to slow death in the dungeons!  You feel their spirits in the cold, clammy air.”  Her elocution was excellent, as her voice sank to an awed whisper, impressing even Bouchard with a certain uncanniness.  Her steps became slow, as with effort, while he was not missing a square inch of the top, bottom, or sides of the tunnel.  “But I’ll not—­I’ll not this time, when I have a soldier with me.  For once I’ll go to the end!” she cried with forced courage, suddenly starting forward at a half run that sent the lantern’s rays lurching and dancing in a way that confused the hawk eyes.  Then her burst of strength seemed to give out in collapse and she dropped against the wall for support, her back covering the panel door.

“I can’t!  I’m just foolishly, weakly feminine!” she whispered brokenly.  “According to reason there aren’t any ghosts, I know.  But it gets on my nerves too much-my imaginings!” She held out the lantern with a trembling hand.  “I will wait here.  You go on in!” she begged.  “Please do and show me what a fool I am!  Show that it is all a woman’s hysteria—­for we are all hysterical, aren’t we?  Go into every dungeon, please!”

She did seem on the verge of hysteria, quivering as die was from head to foot.  But Bouchard, holding the lantern and staring at her, his eyes unearthly lustrous in the yellow rays, hesitated to agree to the request because it was hers.  Marta was not so near hysteria that she did not divine his thought.