The crystal cave - Mary Stewart [97]
Whether the cob sensed the end of his journey, or whether he merely liked the feel of grass under his feet and a light weight on his back, he seemed to quicken his step. Ahead of me now I could see the shoulder of the hill beyond which lay the cave.
I drew rein by the hawthorn grove.
"Here we are. It's up there, above the cliff." I slipped out of the saddle and handed the reins to Cadal. "Stay here and wait for me. You can come up in an hour." I added, on an afterthought: "And don't be alarmed if you see what you think is smoke. It's the bats coming out of the cave."
I had almost forgotten Cadal's sign against the evil eye. He made it now, and I laughed and left him.
3
Before I had climbed round the little crag to the lawn in front of the cave, I knew.
Call it foresight; there was no sign. Silence, of course, but then there usually had been silence as I approached the cave. This silence was different. It was only after some moments that I realized what it was. I could no longer hear the trickle of the spring.
I mounted to the top of the path, came out on the sward, and saw. There was no need to go into the cave to know that he was not there, and never would be again.
On the flat grass in front of the cave-mouth was a scatter of debris. I went closer to look.
It had been done not so very long ago. There had been a fire here, a fire quenched by rain before everything could properly be destroyed. There was a pile of sodden rubbish -- half-charred wood, rags, parchment gone again to pulp but with the blackened edges still showing. I turned the nearest piece of scorched wood over with my foot; from the carving on it I knew what it was; the chest that had held his books. And the parchment was all that remained of the books themselves.
I suppose there was other stuff of his among the wreck of rubbish. I didn't look further. If the books had gone, I knew everything else would have gone too. And Galapas with them.
I went slowly towards the mouth of the cave. I paused by the spring. I could see why there had been no sound; someone had filled in the basin with stones and earth and more wreckage thrown out of the cave. Through it all the water welled still, sluggishly, oozing in silence over the stone lip and down to make a muddy morass of the turf. I thought I could see the skeleton of a bat, picked clean by the water.
Strangely enough, the torch was still on the ledge high beside the mouth of the cave, and it was dry. There was no flint or iron, but I made fire and, holding the torch before me, went slowly inside.
I think my flesh was shivering, as if a cold wind blew out of the cave and went by me. I knew already what I should find.
The place was stripped. Everything had been thrown out to burn. Everything, that is, except the bronze mirror. This, of course, would not burn, and I suppose it had been too heavy to be looted. It had been wrenched from the wall and stood propped against the side of the cave, tilted at a drunken angle. Nothing else. Not even a stir and whisper from the bats in the roof. The place echoed with emptiness.
I lifted the torch high and looked up towards the crystal cave. It was not there.
I believe that for a couple of pulses of the torchlight I thought he had managed to conceal the inner cave, and was in hiding. Then I saw.
The gap into the crystal cave was still there, but chance, call it what you will, had rendered it invisible except to those who knew. The bronze mirror had fallen so that, instead of directing light towards the gap, it directed darkness. Its light was beamed and concentrated on a projection of rock which cast, clear across the mouth of the crystal cave, a black wedge of shadow. To anyone intent only on the pillage and destruction in the cave below, the gap would be hardly visible at all.
"Galapas!" I said, trying it out on the emptiness.