"The foot moves," she said, and she was already on her knees on the
floor, pushing the step.

It slid back with the soft sound Contarini had heard before he came
upstairs. The upper part of the woodwork was built into the wall.

"They meet in the place below this," Arisa said. "When they are there, I
can see a glimmer of light. I cannot get my head in. It is too narrow,
but I hear as if I were with them."

"How did you find this out?" asked Aristarchi on the floor beside her,
and reaching down into the dark space to explore it with his hand. "It
is deep," he continued, without waiting for an answer. "There may be
some passage by which one can get down."

"Only a child could pass. You see how narrow it is. But one can hear
every sound. They said enough to-night to send them all to the
scaffold."

"Better they than we if we ever have to make the choice," said the Greek
ominously.

He had withdrawn his arm and was planted upon his hands and knees, his
shaggy head hanging over the dark aperture. He was like some rough wild
beast that has tracked its quarry to earth and crouches before the hole,
waiting for a victim.

"How did you find this out?" he asked again, looking up.