IN OGOFAU
In the darkness, Goronwy was lurking about the church. He was the first
to communicate to Rogier that Morwen had taken sanctuary. The Norman,
angry, bade him watch and not suffer her to leave without informing him
whither she had betaken herself. She could not remain there
indefinitely. It was a custom that sanctuary held for seven days and
nights, and that if the clergy could not send away a refugee during that
time, the right of protection afforded by the sacredness of the
precincts ceased in that particular case.
Rogier was wounded in his vanity, but not greatly concerned. He was
certain that she could not escape him eventually.
A hand was laid on Goronwy's shoulder; he started with terror, and his
alarm was not lessened when Pabo addressed him, "What are you doing
here, Goronwy?"
"Oh, Pabo! we have feared you were lost."
"As you see--I am returned. What are you doing here?"
"Alas! I have no proper home--no more than you. Do you ask then why I am
about at night?"
"Poor boy! poor boy! Well, I would have you do me a commission now. I
must not be seen here; yet would communicate with my wife. Where is
Morwen?"
Goronwy hesitated but for a moment, and then answered, "I do not know."
"She is not now with Howel?"
"No, sent elsewhere. Perhaps to Llansawel."
"You must find her, and bid her come to me."
"Whither shall I bid her go?"
"Bid her come to me in Ogofau."
"In Ogofau?" echoed Goronwy, shrinking back.
"There is one thing more I desire," pursued Pabo. "Go into the church
and bring me thence one of those coils of taper that hang in front of
the screen."
"Taper!" in all but speechless astonishment.
"Yes; I am going to enter the old mine. I do not hesitate to tell you,
as one in blood, in hopes, in sufferings with me. I am going to enter
the mine, and would fain have a consecrated light."
"I will get it at once," said Goronwy, and went within. What could this
mean? What was Pabo's object? Within the church two lamps burnt in the
sanctuary, but without all was dark, yet in the darkness he could see
Morwen crouched against the screen. A Celtic church had buildings
connected with it--a guest hall in which the congregation could assemble
and take a meal after divine service, stables for horses, and even
sleeping apartments. All were surrounded by the privilege of sanctuary;
yet Morwen remained in the church, fearing lest these adjuncts should
not meet with the same respect as the main building, the house of God.
Against the screen were hung a number of twisted wax tapers, forming
coils. These were employed on vigils and at the Pylgain, or Christmas
Eve service at night. One of these Goronwy took down. He said no word to
Morwen, but went out as silently as he had entered.
"I thank you," said Pabo. "I would not enter myself lest Cadell should
be there, and he recognize me."
"You need not have feared that," laughed Goronwy. "He is not one to
spend hours in prayer. He is not there."
"Then will I enter and pray."
"Nay," Goronwy interposed. "There are others there who it were well
should not see you."
"Be it so," said Pabo. "And now--find Morwen, aye--and speak with Howel
also. Tell him naught of Ogofau. I shall have something to say shortly
that will make the hearts of all Welshmen dance."
"And will you not tell me?"
"All in good time, lad. As yet I cannot say, for in sooth it is an
expectation and not a certainty."
Then he departed.
Goronwy leaned against the church wall, looking in the direction he had
taken, perplexed and not knowing what he should do.
Pabo took his course over the brawling Annell, below the church, and
mounted a spur of hill, among woods, till he came to a hollow, an
incipient glen that ran west, and opposite rose a rounded height crowned
by a camp, the Caer of ancient Cynyr, the father of the Five Saints. It
was thence these holy brothers had descended to place themselves under
the tuition of Cynwyl. It was when these five had disappeared into the
gold-mine that the father had surrendered his principality to the
missionary who had come among them from the North, and thus had
constituted the Archpriesthood, holding a chieftaindom over the Caio
district.
And now Pabo descended among stumps of trees and broken masses of stone,
and all at once stood on the edge of a great crater, into which the
silvery light of the moon from behind a haze flowed, and which it
filled. Out of this circular basin shot up a spire of rock, called the
Belfry of Gwen--of her who dared to enter the mine to spy on the Saints
in their magic sleep.
Cautiously Pabo descended the steep side, where the rubble, sifted for
gold, sloped to the floor.
On reaching the bottom he looked around him.
He was in an amphitheater of rock, here abrupt, there buried under
slopes of detritus.
The moon came out and sent the shadow of Gwen's Belfry across the level
white floor of the mine.
What the Romans had done was to scoop out the interior of a nodule of
hill, much as we now dig out the inside of a Stilton cheese, and leave
the walls intact. But there existed this difference: that the walls were
not like a cheese-rind, that could be pierced through. They were but
portions of the mountain, into which, by adits from the crater, the
miners had burrowed. Most of these old tunnels were choked, some hidden
under slides of rubble, but one gaped black, and it was into this that
the Five Saints had entered according to legend, and Gwen also. And now
Pabo was about to penetrate as well. Doubt of the reality of the
discovery made by the hermit had departed. He was fully convinced that
he would light on the hoard. His sole fear left was he should forget the
directions he had seen traced on the plank.
There was little wind now, below in this bowl. He struck flint and steel
together and obtained a light. Then he kindled his wax taper, signed
himself with the cross, and entered the cave.
For some way in, the floor was covered with stones that had been thrown
in. The roof was higher than his head and was arched.
This was no natural cavern like that under Careg Cennen. This was cut by
man's hand, out of rock very different in character, color, and texture
from the limestone.
The light from his taper glittered in the water that trickled over the
sides, and in the pools that here and there lay in the footway. There
were no stalagmites. Pabo could distinguish the marks of the picks used
to excavate the adit. All at once he was startled by a rushing and
whistling.
He drew back, and past him swept legions of bats that had hitherto lived
undisturbed in this cave. They came back, flickered near his face,
threatened his light, and he shouted and threw stones. Then--he saw,
heard them no more. They had issued from the portal and had gone to hunt
under the open sky.
Now the ground rose; there had been an accumulation of soil, and he was
forced to bend low to pass on. But presently the floor sank and the
vault was loftier, and he pursued his course erect.
The ground now was hard rock, not earth, and it rang under his steps. It
was also dry. The air was intensely still.
The candle cast but a feeble light, and that but imperfectly illumined
the way before him. He could best see by holding it above his head, yet
was able to do this only where the arched roof was high, and he ever
feared lest it should strike on a rock and become extinguished.
The passage bulged and became a hall, and here it seemed to him that he
saw some blue object before him. He stood, uncertain what it was, and
whether to venture towards it. Presently he discovered that it was a
patch of light, a reflection of some of the moonlit vapor in the sky
falling through a small orifice far, far above in a dome, the height of
which he could not measure. In contrast with the yellow flame of his
candle, this feeble spot had looked blue as a turquoise. He tried to
recollect the plan sketched on the board, and he did remember that this
hall was there indicated, with _Ibi lumen_ scrawled beside it. He
traversed this hall and entered another passage, or a continuance of the
same, beyond. Then he put his hand to his brow, and endeavored to recall
the sketch of the mine--and felt that it was gone from him.
While lying in prison at Careg Cennen he had recalled it distinctly--he
now, indeed, remembered that there was a direction _in sinistram_ or _ad
dextram_, he could not now say which, and where the turn was to be made.
However, there surely could be no mistake--as he had the way open
before him.
Hitherto he had felt no fear. Possibly his incarceration in partial
darkness had accustomed him to some such places; he pushed on, moreover,
animated with hope. And he placed some confidence in his blessed taper
from the church of the patron of his family and tribe.
But suddenly he sprang back, and only just in time. In front of him,
occupying the whole width of the passage, was a hole. How deep it was he
had some means of judging by hearing the bound and rebound of a stone
dislodged by his foot.
"_Cave puteum_;" now he recalled the warning.
He crept forward cautiously, and extended his light over the gulf. It
illumined the sides but a little way down. Judging by the time a stone
took in falling before it plashed into water, it must have been about
fifty feet in depth.
The well was not large at the mouth. And now Pabo distinctly remembered
that the _Thesaurus_ was not far beyond it.
It did not occur to him to return. He was so near the goal that reach it
he must.
He examined attentively the sides. Not a thread of a track existed
whereby the abyss might be skirted. There were no pieces of wood about
by means of which it could be bridged.
The well's mouth was but four feet in diameter. Surely he could leap
that!
He stepped back two, three strides, and bounded. He reached the ground
beyond, but in the spring his light was extinguished.
The snuff was glowing, and he blew on it, but it would not flame.
"It matters not," said he. "I have my tinder and steel; I can relight
it. Now on, on to the gold!"
He stepped forward in the dark, but holding the taper with the
smoldering snuff. Then his steps sounded as though he were in a wide
chamber. He held out his hands; the walls had fallen away. A few steps
further, and he stumbled, and stumbling, dropped on his knees, and saw
by the expiring light of the snuff--the glint of ingots of gold.
The last spark went out, and he was in complete darkness.