The dark passage thus revealed to view was black as pitch, and Cuthbert involuntarily recoiled.  But Cherry had been here before, and knew the place, and laid her hand upon his arm.

“Courage!” she said, in a voice that quivered with excitement and not with fear; “it is always so here.  Walk boldly in; there is naught to hurt us.  When the door has closed we shall see a light.”

Stepping across the threshold, and keeping fast hold of Cherry’s arm, his quick glance roving from side to side in search of any possible foe lurking in the shadows, Cuthbert entered this strange abode, and felt rather than saw that the door closed noiselessly behind them, whilst he heard the shooting of a heavy bolt, and turned with a start, for it seemed impossible that this could have been done without some human hand to accomplish the deed.  But his sense of touch assured him that he and Cherry were the only persons at this end of the narrow passage, and with a light shiver at the uncanny occurrence, he made up his mind to follow this adventure to the end.

“See, there is the light!” whispered Cherry, who was quivering with excitement.  “That is the sign that the wise woman is ready.  We have to follow it.  It will lead us to her.”

The light was dim enough, but it showed plainly in the pitchy darkness of the passage, and seemed to be considerably above them.

“We must mount the stairs,” whispered Cherry, feeling her way cautiously to the foot of the rickety flight; and the cousins mounted carefully, the dun light, which they did not see—­only the reflections it cast brightening the dimness—­going on before, until they reached an upper chamber, the door of which stood wide open, a soft radiance shining out, whilst a strange monotonous chanting was heard within.

Upon the threshold of the room stood a huge black cat with bristling tail and fiery eyes.  It seemed as though he would dispute the entrance of the strangers, and Cuthbert said to himself that he had never seen an uglier-looking brute of the kind since the monster wildcat he had killed in the forest about his home.  He drew Cherry a pace backwards, for the creature looked crouching for a spring.

“It is the wise woman’s cat, her familiar spirit!” whispered the girl, in a very low voice.  “Show him a piece of money; then he will let us pass.  He takes toll of those who come to the wise woman.  Show him the gold, and then place it within that shell.  After that he will let us go in.”

Cuthbert took a small piece of gold from his purse.  He held it up before the formidable-looking creature, and then let it drop into a shell fixed in the outer wall of the room.  He heard it fall as if through a slot, and fancied that some person within the room had taken it out and examined it.  There was a slight peculiar call, and the cat, whose tail had begun to grow less, and whose snarlings had ceased at sight of the coin, now sprang suddenly backwards and vanished within the room, whilst a cracked voice was heard bidding them enter.