They studied the walls of the passageway from the entrance on the moors to the arch leading into the treasure chamber, with careful scrutiny. There was one place that looked as if a land slide might have occurred at some time, blocking a possible side passage, but if there had been any such, it was effectively and completely cut off now. Inside the treasure vault everything looked exactly the same as when they had left it, the huge iron-hilted sword still lay on top of one of the chests, the other, containing the books and loose pages, stood open. Neither Hugh nor Dickon could remember positively whether they had closed the lid when they had last been there or not. Probably they had not. Hugh halted for some moments before the large aumbry against the wall opposite the archway, in thoughtful silence.
“Let’s move that,” said he, “there might possibly be something behind it.”
But with all their strength the boys could not budge it an inch. They tried to pry the doors open but were unsuccessful in that also.
“Bleheris couldn’t have come out of a locked cabinet or through unbroken walls,” said Dickon gloomily; “he couldn’t have dropt from the ceiling or come up out of the floor—or could he? Let’s examine this floor more carefully.”
There was no sign whatever of loose flooring or a possible trapdoor. Dickon sat down on the chest beside the sword and gazed at the hole which he and Hugh had made bigger and which led into the stream bed beyond. That certainly gave them no further clue.
“It’s either enchantment or the devil or maybe both,” he declared with finality, and crossed himself as a matter of protection. “Bleheris just could not have got in here—and yet he did.”
Hugh was rummaging among the loose manuscripts and made no reply for the moment. Suddenly he cried out excitedly, straightened up and held a single page near the candlelight. “Dickon! Look here! What do you call this?”
The boy glanced over Hugh’s shoulder. “Just a funny design, isn’t it? No, it isn’t! It’s a chart or map of something! Let’s see it closer!”
They both studied the page in eager silence. Very evidently the faint, half-obliterated lines and squares were meant to represent a chart. Latin words, by way of explanation, ran beside some of them and short phrases in the corner, which were unintelligible to Dickon but yielded their meaning to Hugh. He translated: “‘The Cave of the Well’; ‘The Hidden’—something—I can’t make out; ‘The Old Church’; ‘Passage to North Gate.’”
“Dickon!” he whispered, almost too excited to speak. “Dickon, do you realize what we have found?”
It was at that moment that a strange sound caught their attention. They wheeled around toward the great aumbry whence it came; a noise of rasping metal, unmistakably the sliding of a rusty bolt. The two gazed in fascinated terror at the doors of the great cupboard which moved and shook a little and then were thrust open. Through them emerged the giant figure of the mad hermit of Beckery, with the customary bell at his girdle and the antique lantern in his hand.
And there was no mistaking his madness either! His face, dead pale, was working with emotion; his eyes blazed, his great hand gripped the handle of the lantern with a power that whitened the knuckles.
“Thieves! Caitiffs! Villains!” he screamed. “Away with you, lest I fling you against yon walls and shatter your feeble bodies! Be gone! Be gone or I will—”
He was looking directly at Dickon, then his gaze shifted to Hugh; a flash of recognition passed over his face, and his rage lessened.
“How came you here, boy, and for what purpose? Tell me! Tell me quickly, ere the foul demons that govern my passions let loose upon you, to slay you! What are you seeking?”
Hugh with a mighty effort got control of his panic, steadied his shaking voice, and answered quietly:
“Master Bleheris, we are seeking what you seek—the Holy Cup, and all such things as may pertain to that sacred mystery—”
“Aha!” the hermit took him up eagerly. “Now I remember! And hast thou found it? But no, thou art but a foolish lad. Thou canst not succeed where I, Bleheris, have failed.”
His anger seemed to have softened and died down as suddenly as it had blazed up. He looked about the room and then back at the two boys. “How came you here?” said he again. “None save I knows of the hidden way and I—’twas scarce a month ago that I came upon it, following the direction of a dream.”
He forgot that he had asked a question, apparently, or cared not for the answer. Going over to the chest whereon lay the huge sword, he picked it up as lightly, as effortlessly as if it had been a child’s toy.
“Excalibur!” he said reverently. “King Arthur’s sword! After that last great battle, Sir Bohort took it, he who had borne the wounded king upon his shoulders from the field of war. And it was here that Arthur bade him fling it from him, here in our marshes hard by the Island of Beckery. He flung it with all his mighty strength out into the water. And they say a hand reached out and drew it under, and no man saw it after that day. . . . But that is not true.”
Bleheris, who had taken on the sing-song monotone customary to minstrels, and whose eyes had become glazed, unseeing, as if fastened only on some inner vision, changed suddenly. His voice sounded harsh, combative, his eyes fixed themselves upon Hugh with fire and intensity as if the boy had contradicted him. “It is not true!” he repeated. “I found it myself, hidden in the marsh grasses, dull, rusted. I polished and cleaned it. See you, how it shines? King Arthur’s sword! It is mine now, mine! Mine!”
“King Arthur’s sword, Excalibur,” exclaimed Hugh in awe. “But, Master Bleheris, how know you it is indeed that sword?”
“The old stories tell of it,” said the hermit, “and that which is inscribed on the two sides of the blade, up near the hilt. Look you—look you—’tis just as the records say.”
The boys drew closer and watched him trace with his finger the words on the one side. “Take me.”
Then he turned the great blade over in his hands and pointed to those other words in the language Hugh had not been able to read. “Runes,” said he, “the hidden, secret language that the Druids wrote and some few master magicians among the Welsh still understand.” He laid the sword back on the chest with a great sigh.
“But what do they say, those runes?” pursued Hugh eagerly.
“‘Throw me away,’” said the hermit, sighing again. “Alas, I cannot! It is my greatest treasure, Excalibur; often and often I carry it with me as I wander about the fens and ancient roads and among the hills—Chalice, Tor, Weary-All Hill, sacred, mysterious, ancient places that lie round about our Glaston. It whispers to me, tells me again the stories of those brave old days, stories of knightly deeds and high romance. It led me here, here to this long lost treasure chamber of the Viking times. And it may be—lads, lads, it may well be—that, holding Excalibur before me thus—” he picked the sword up again and held it, hilt upward before him, so that it looked like a cross—”it may be that Excalibur himself will lead me to that hidden Hallow, holiest of all in the whole world—”
“The Holy Grail,” finished Hugh as the old man paused, his lips trembling in emotion.
“Aye, the Holy Grail,” he repeated solemnly.
A long silence followed. The boys could hear the trickle of the stream beyond the hole in the wall. Dickon fidgeted; Hugh watched the hermit intently, eager to urge him on, yet fearful lest, by breaking in upon his mood of reverie, he start the flighty, unstable mind into an entirely different channel.
“‘Throw me away?’” Hugh repeated softly after a few moments. “Might that not have been written for the men of King Arthur’s day and not for us?”
Bleheris nodded his head. “Those words have meaning for all time, like all great words. King Arthur read them aright—for himself. For me they have perchance a different meaning—and for you. Take heed, boy, that you read them aright.”
To Dickon this conversation made no sense whatever, and he was growing restless. Those two could moon around and get emotional over an old black sword, but as
for him, he wanted a look in at that passageway! He moved over to the huge aumbry and was about to go through the doors when a long strong arm caught him by the shoulder and flung him back against the wall. The hermit, his eyes b1azing again, had evidently not been as oblivious to Dickon’s thought and actions as he had appeared to be.
“Stand back,” he cried harshly. “Who gave thee permission to tread my secret way? I tell thee, it is mine and thou shalt not enter it until I bid thee!”
“But, Master Bleheris,” said Hugh, touching his arm gently, and making unmistakable motions to Dickon from behind the old man’s back, to hold his tongue, “we are in the mystery, too. We found this treasure vault maybe before you did—at least Dickon found it and brought me here. We be searchers, too.”
“True,” agreed the hermit, mollified. “How did you get in?” He eyed Dickon keenly but no longer with anger.
“From the moor—a cleft near the old north gate. But you couldn’t get in or out that way; you are too big!” Dickon laughed as he said it.
Bleheris nodded slowly. “The ancient way,” said he, “blocked by a cave-in, forgotten for many centuries. It once led from the monastic grounds to the village, and in the days of the Danish raids, the brothers took their treasures underground, left many here—or so it seems likely—and carried what they could on through to a port whence they might escape, inland or overseas.”
“That is the way we figured it out,” said Hugh, “only we can’t imagine how they got in and where-from.”
A shrewd look came over the hermit’s face. He turned from Hugh to Dickon and then back again. “How know I that yon oblate is worthy of trust? As for thee, there is something about thee that makes me sure—”
“We be sworn brothers,” said Hugh proudly. “It was here in this very spot, beside the jeweled altar, that we mingled our blood and swore that we would be true brothers in all things until the end of our lives.”
“The jeweled altar? I had forgotten; show me!” The old man’s interest swung off to another turning again.
Hugh and Dickon opened the chest where they had left it, and drew forth the portable altar with its gold base and marble top and the large shining blue sapphire set in the center of it. Bleheris looked long and appraisingly at it, touched it reverently with his strong fingers, and then spoke.
“Aye, it was here the day Excalibur led me to this place. I remember now, Saint David’s altar, given him by the Patriarch of Jerusalem. It floated across the seas, men say, straight to our Avalon, drawn as by a lodestone to the sacredest spot in England. For a long time the brothers used it in their services for the dying and then it was lost. How came you upon it, boy?” He turned to Dickon again.
“It was here, right in this treasure vault, when I first got in and explored this place.”
“Then there may well be other things hidden—that Other Thing, most holy of all.” The old man caught up the sword again which he had left standing in a corner while they had talked. “’Tis a good, notion truly, to swear brotherhood. Now, by this sword of mystery and magic, King Arthur’s sword, Excalibur, let us three swear that we will not speak of this thing nor cease to seek till we have found the Grail, the Holy Cup, if so be it still rests hidden in our Glaston.”
It was a solemn moment. Bleheris thrust the mighty blade into Hugh’s hands. “Take it,” said he, “swear by it—secrecy, brotherhood, the sword and the quest—forever and ever!”
Dickon as well as Hugh must hold the sword and repeat the words. Then Bleheris laid Excalibur gently down, walked to the aumbry and threw open the doors. The two boys stepped eagerly forward. Now, at last, the mystery of the hidden passage would be laid bare. But the hermit held up an imperious hand, his eyes half-closed, and regarded Dickon inscrutably.
“Not yet,” said he, “not yet, my young friends.” And with that he stooped, entered the aumbry and closed and bolted the doors after him!
It was too much! Dickon lay down on the floor and laughed hysterically, the sound reverberating oddly from the walls and passageway. Hugh stood as if rooted to the spot.
“The crazy old bird!” sputtered Dickon, sitting up. “Of all the fool performances! All that gibberish about the sword and just as we are about to stick our noses into the heart of the mystery bang goes the door in our faces, and we are scarcely one step further along than we were when we first got in here!”
“Oh, yes, we are—much further!” corrected Hugh. “We know this end of the secret way out, and we’ve got our chart; don’t forget that!” He waved the piece of parchment with the map on it before Dickon’s face.
“That’s true.” Dickon scrambled up. “But of all—” he laughed again. If my face was as blank as yours, when he shut that door on us, we must have looked like a couple of pie-faced loons! Come on, let’s get away from here before our candles give out.”
For awhile after that things moved with discouraging slowness. The chart was indistinct, almost impossible to decipher. Day after day the two boys studied it minutely, carefully, and Hugh made a copy of it with a piece of slate on a flat stone in the old monks’ cemetery near the two ancient pyramids outside the Old Church, where they were accustomed to meet.
“Here’s our treasure vault,” he said, pointing with a stick while Dickon kept his finger on the corresponding square marked on the chart. “The secret passage goes from the aumbry quite straight, according to those dotted lines in the map, to the Cave of the Well. That’s clear enough—on paper—but there’s no sign of any break in the walls of that Cave of the Well where an opening might come through.”
Dickon grunted. “All lined with flat limestone, one slab as like its neighbor as two peas in the same pod.”
“Never mind, let’s leave that question for a moment and go over here to the well. See, here is the well, marked on the chart with an arch over it, and something that might mean a stairway to the left, behind it. The Latin is rubbed out so I can’t read it. And then, over here are the words, ‘Old Church.’ Dickon, I think there must be stairs up from the Cave of the Well to St. Joseph’s Chapel!”
The next time they went down into the underground vault, they climbed at once through the hole in the treasure chamber to the stream bed and thence, crawling along with more certainty now that the way had become familiar, came directly into the Cave of the Well. They scrutinized the walls once again, always hoping that the flat limestones that lined it would give some indication somewhere of a break or hidden doorway.
“The passageway from the aumbry, the way Bleheris came, must open out into this cave,” Hugh said, for the hundredth time.
“Maybe not,” said Dickon. “For all we know it may lead back through the marshes to Beckery and the hermit himself.”
“But the chart indicates a line straight from the treasure chamber here, and up and out by a stairway to the Old Church; at least it looks that way.”
The two boys climbed behind the arch over the well. To the right was the trickling stream coming through the overflow drain from Blood Spring which they had climbed before. They turned to the left. Here the wall was irregular and unlined, the natural rock substance of the cave. Holding their candle high they peered about and soon made out a darker recess behind a jutting promontory. With hearts beating high, they soon found it to be indeed the entrance to another passageway, high and broad and definitely man-made. They entered, followed it a few yards and came upon a stairway, rough hewn out of the rock substance, broken and worn away in places, but still firm and whole enough for them to mount without difficulty. It led upward at a slight curve and came to an end abruptly under what was very evidently a trap door, large, heavy, sunk solidly into the walls on either side. Dickon handed the candle to Hugh and pushed with all his might. The door gave no evidence at all of yielding. They found a rough place in the wall where they could wedge the candle so that it would be held upright. Then they both pushed against the door with straining shoulders. Useless; not so much as a crack did the great door open.
“Only Bl
eheris himself could move that!” declared Dickon, panting after a final effort.
“Well then, it’s back to Bleheris we go,” asserted Hugh, picking up the candle. “There’s no use trying any further at this end unless we have him with us. If we can only keep his mind on the fact that we three are bound together now in our search, maybe we can get him to show us the rest of the puzzle down here himself.”
Dickon grunted disgustedly. “Seems to me,” said he, as they emerged again into the Cave of the Well, “that every place we go we come flat up against Master Bleheris. And he’s crazy as a hoot owl and can’t be counted on to stay in the same mood or on the same subject for fifteen minutes on a stretch, so—”
“But he’s a grand old minstrel, anyhow!” Hugh interrupted, “and I like him!”
“Well, why don’t you go over to Beckery without me?” suggested Dickon. “You seem to have a good effect on him and maybe he would talk more to the point if I wasn’t there to get his old wits all bothered—if you’re not afraid.”
“Oh, no, I’m not afraid.”
So Hugh began going to Beckery alone. On his first visit he was a bit uneasy. Would Bleheris remember the scene with the sword Excalibur and accept him as a friend and fellow-worker, or would he blaze at him again in one of his sudden and terrifying fits of wrath? He need not have worried, but also he might as well not have made his visit, or so Dickon thought when he was told about it. The old man acted as if he had expected him, greeted him with lordly courtesy and started at once upon a long, wandering story of knights and ladies and romantic adventure. Much as Hugh loved a good tale, he found it hard to sit through this one with patience, eager as he was to ask questions and probe more into the mystery that absorbed his mind.
And when at last the minstrel came to the end, twanged his lute in a final chord and then rose, bowing right and left to an imaginary courtly audience, the boy wondered whether he dared break into his mood at all.
The Hidden Treasure of Glaston Page 12
