“You see, there’s a lot of seepage. Papa’s knocked about all over the walls here trying to find a room that might have been used for the water supply, but he’s discovered nothing, except that it stays wet here all year round. There’s a little room at the other end, just under the small library, and then a stairway up into the hallway between it and the guest Stube. Another of the legends of the house is that there was once a secret passage from the basement here to the outside. Papa’s sure it runs under the foundation from the room we’re going to, out to the north of the house by the vegetable garden. The ground slopes off there rapidly and he says it would be perfect for such a tunnel. But he’s been over every inch of the room and the slope outside and has found nothing. So it’s probably just like the dungeon legend.”

As they went, Matthew kept expecting a second passageway to turn off at right angles to the one they were walking along, as in his dream. But the corridor was long and straight, without sign of door or hall or room on either side, leading eventually to the small room Sabina had described. At the far corner, a stairway much like the one they had descended rose from the dirt floor out of sight.

They stopped and looked around the empty cubicle. ·

“Not much here,” said Matthew. “Maybe this is the dungeon.”

“Perhaps,” replied Sabina. “Papa thinks this was the icehouse, with some kind of a tunnel leading outside through which they brought the ice to store in the winter.”

“What’s it used for now?”

“Nothing. None of this down here is used for anything. No one ever comes down here but me. I used to play down here, though it was scary when I was alone. All the servants are afraid of the place. I think they’re more convinced they’re going to stumble onto ghosts or dead bodies than buried treasure!”

“It does sort of resemble the catacombs, you know. Show me these stairs over here,” he added, moving toward the corner.

Sabina handed him the candle.

“Go on up,” she said. “I’ll be right behind you. Give me your crutch, and if you fall, I’ll catch you.”

Tentatively Matthew limped his way up, good foot first, pulling his cast up behind him, arriving at the top where solid walls met him in all three directions.

“It’s a dead end,” he said back down to Sabina, his voice echoing through the circular tunnel.

“No it’s not, silly,” she laughed. “You just have to know which stone to pull out.”

“What are you talking about?”