The Wanderer's Necklace

"Leave go," she said faintly, like one who is afraid.

I obeyed, though with doubt, and heard her feet strike upon some floor.

"Thanks be the saints, all is well," she said. "For aught I knew this hole might have been as deep as that in the Chamber of the Pit. Let yourself down it, feet first, and drop. 'Tis but shallow."

I did so, and found myself beside Martina.

"Now, in the darkness you are the better guide," she whispered. "Lead on, I'll follow, holding to your robe."

So I crept forward warily and safely, as the blind can do, till presently she exclaimed, "Halt, here is light again. I think that the roof of the tomb, for by the paintings on the walls such it must be, has fallen in. It seems to be a kind of central chamber, out of which run great galleries that slope downwards and are full of bats. Ah! one of them is caught in my hair. Olaf, I will go no farther. I fear bats more than ghosts, or anything in the world."

Now, I considered a while till a thought struck me. On my back was my beggar's harp. I unslung it and swept its chords, and wild and sad they sounded in that solemn place. Then I began to sing an old song that twice or thrice I had sung with Heliodore in Byzantium. This song told of a lover seeking his mistress. It was for two voices, since in the song the mistress answered verse for verse. Here are those of the lines that I remember, or, rather, the spirit of them rendered into English. I sang the first verse and waited.

"Dear maid of mine, / I bid my strings Beat on thy shrine / With music's wings. Palace or cell / A shrine I see, If there thou dwell / And answer me."

There was no answer, so I sang the second verse and once more waited.

"On thy love's fire / My passion breathes, Wind of Desire / Thy incense wreathes. Greeting! To thee, / Or soon or late, I, bond or free, / Am dedicate."

And from somewhere far away in the recesses of that great cave came the answering strophe.

"O Love sublime / And undismayed, No touch of Time / Upon thee laid. That that is thine; / Ended the quest! I seek my shrine / Upon thy breast."

Then I laid down the harp.

At last a voice, the voice of Heliodore speaking whence I knew not, asked, "Do the dead sing, or is it a living man? And if so, how is that man named?"