ed.
But just now Casey was absorbed in solving the one angle of the mystery
which he had stumbled upon at first, and he gave no more than a glance
and a thought to the silent testimony of the rock walls.

He found the door, fastened also on the outside just as he had expected
it would be. Beside it stood a rather clever heating apparatus which
Casey did not examine in detail. His Irish heart was beating rather
fast while he unfastened the door. Beyond that door his thoughts went
questing eagerly but he hesitated nevertheless before he lifted his
knuckles and rapped.

There was no reply. Casey waited a minute, knocked again, then pulled
the door open a crack and looked in. The old woman sat there rocking
back and forth, steadily, quietly. But her thin fingers were rolling a
corner of her apron hem painstakingly, as if she meant to hem it again.
Her eyes were fixed absently upon the futile task. Casey watched her
as long as he dared and cleared his throat twice in the hope that she
would notice him. But the old woman rocked back and forth and rolled
her apron hem; unrolled it and carefully rolled it again.

"Good morning, ma'am," said Casey, clearing his throat for the third
time and coming a step into the room with his candle dripping wax on
the floor.

For just an instant the uneasy fingers paused in their rolling of the
apron hem. For just so long the rockers hesitated in their motion.
But the old woman did not reply nor turn her face toward him; and Casey
pushed the door shut behind him and took two more steps toward her.

"I come to see if yuh needed anything, ma'am; a friend, mebbe." Casey
grinned amiably, wanting to reassure her if it were possible to make
her aware of his presence. "They had yuh locked in, ma'am. That don't
look good to Casey Ryan. If yuh wanta get out--if they got yuh held a
prisoner here, or anything like 'that, you can trust Casey Ryan any old
time. Is--can I do anything for yuh, ma'am?" The old woman dropped her
hands to her lap and held them there, closely clasped. Her head swung
slowly round until she was looking at Casey with that awful, fixed
stare she had heretofore directed at the wall or the floor.

"Tell those hell-hounds they have a thousand years to burn--every one
of them!" she said in a deep, low voice that had in it a singing
resonance like a chant. "Every cat, every rat, every mouse, every
louse, has a thousand year's to burn. Tell Mart the hounds of hell
must