“With a marvellous stomach for a dainty maiden or two,” added Gilbert Curll, falling into her humour.

“Hark!  Good lack!” cried the Queen, with an affectation of terror, as a most extraordinary noise proceeded from the bowels of the cavern, making Cis start and Marie de Courcelles give a genuine shriek.

“Your Majesty is pleased to be merry,” said the Earl, ponderously.  “The sound is only the coughing of the torchbearers from the damp whereof I warned your Majesty.”

“By my faith,” said Mary, “I believe my Lord Earl himself fears the monster of the cavern, to whom he gives the name of Damp.  Dread nothing, my Lord; the valorous knight Sir Jones is even now in conflict with the foul worm, as those cries assure me, being in fact caused by his fumigations.”

The jest was duly received, and in the midst of the laughter, young Eyre came forward, bowing low, and holding his jewelled hat in his hand, while his eyes betrayed that he had recently been sneezing violently.

“So please your Majesty,” he said, “the odour hath rolled away, and all is ready if you will vouchsafe to accept my poor guidance.”

“How say you, my Lord?” said Mary.  “Will you dare the lair of the conquered foe, or fear you to be pinched with aches and pains by his lurking hobgoblins?  If so, we dispense with your attendance.”

“Your Majesty knows that where she goes thither I am bound to attend her,” said the rueful Earl.

“Even into the abyss!” said Mary.  “Valiantly spoken, for have not Ariosto and his fellows sung of captive princesses for whom every cave held an enchanter who could spirit them away into vapour thin as air, and leave their guardians questing in vain for them?”

“Your Majesty jests with edged tools,” sighed the Earl.

Old Mr. Eyre was too feeble to act as exhibitor of the cave, and his son was deputed to lead the Queen forward.  This was, of course, Lord Shrewsbury’s privilege, but he was in truth beholden to her fingers for aid, as she walked eagerly forward, now and then accepting a little help from John Eyre, but in general sure-footed and exploring eagerly by the light of the numerous torches held by yeomen in the Eyre livery, one of whom was stationed wherever there was a dangerous pass or a freak of nature worth studying.

The magnificent vaulted roof grew lower, and presently it became necessary to descend a staircase, which led to a deep hollow chamber, shaped like a bell, and echoing like one.  A pool of intensely black water filled it, reflecting the lights on its surface, that only enhanced its darkness, while there moved on a mysterious flat-bottomed boat, breaking them into shimmering sparks, and John Eyre intimated that the visitors must lie down flat in it to be ferried one by one over a space of about fourteen yards.

“Your Majesty will surely not attempt it,” said the Earl, with a shudder.

“Wherefore not?  It is but a foretaste of Charon’s boat!” said Mary, who was one of those people whose spirit of enterprise rises with the occasion, and she murmured to Mary Seaton the line of Dante—­