For a few minutes the feelings which surged through him were so full of strong excitement that they set his brain in a whirl. He knew what his father would say--that would not do. If he was to think, he must hold himself still and not let even joy overcome him. The key was in the black little cellar, and he must find it in the dark. Even the woman who liked him enough to give him a chance of freedom knew that she must not open the door and let him out. There must be a delay. He would have to find the key himself, and it would be sure to take time. The chances were that they would be at a safe enough distance before he could get out.
“I will kneel down and crawl on my hands and knees,'' he said.
“I will crawl back and forth and go over every inch of the floor with my hands until I find it. If I go over every inch, I shall find it.''
So he kneeled down and began to crawl, and the cat watched him and purred.
“We shall get out, Puss-cat,'' he said to her. “I told you we should.''
He crawled from the door to the wall at the side of the shelves, and then he crawled back again. The key might be quite a small one, and it was necessary that he should pass his hands over every inch, as he had said. The difficulty was to be sure, in the darkness, that he did not miss an inch. Sometimes he was not sure enough, and then he went over the ground again. He crawled backward and forward, and he crawled forward and backward. He crawled crosswise and lengthwise, he crawled diagonally, and he crawled round and round. But he did not find the key. If he had had only a little light, but he had none. He was so absorbed in his search that he did not know he had been engaged in it for several hours, and that it was the middle of the night. But at last he realized that he must stop for a rest, because his knees were beginning to feel bruised, and the skin of his hands was sore as a result of the rubbing on the flags. The cat and her kittens had gone to sleep and awakened again two or three times.
“But it is somewhere!'' he said obstinately. “It is inside the cellar. I heard something fall which was made of metal. That was the ringing sound which awakened me.''
When he stood up, he found his body ached and he was very tired.
He stretched himself and exercised his arms and legs.
“I wonder how long I have been crawling about,'' he thought.
“But the key is in the cellar. It is in the cellar.''
He sat down near the cat and her family, and, laying his arm on the shelf above her, rested his head on it. He began to think of another experiment.
“I am so tired, I believe I shall go to sleep again. `Thought which Knows All' ''--he was quoting something the hermit had said to Loristan in their midnight talk--“Thought which Knows All!
Show me this little thing. Lead me to it when I awake.''
And he did fall asleep, sound and fast.
He did not know that he slept all the rest of the night. But he did. When he awakened, it was daylight in the streets, and the milk-carts were beginning to jingle about, and the early postmen were knocking big double-knocks at front doors. The cat may have heard the milk-carts, but the actual fact was that she herself was hungry and wanted to go in search of food. Just as Marco lifted his head from his arm and sat up, she jumped down from her shelf and went to the door. She had expected to find it ajar as it had been before. When she found it shut, she scratched at it and was disturbed to find this of no use. Because she knew Marco was in the cellar, she felt she had a friend who would assist her, and she miauled appealingly.
This reminded Marco of the key.
“I will when I have found it,'' he said. “It is inside the cellar.''
The cat miauled again, this time very anxiously indeed. The kittens heard her and began to squirm and squeak piteously.
“Lead me to this little thing,'' said Marco, as if speaking to Something in the darkness about him, and he got up.
He put his hand out toward the kittens, and it touched something lying not far from them. It must have been lying near his elbow all night while he slept.
It was the key! It had fallen upon the shelf, and not on the floor at all.
Marco picked it up and then stood still a moment. He made the sign of the cross.
Then he found his way to the door and fumbled until he found the keyhole and got the key into it. Then he turned it and pushed the door open--and the cat ran out into the passage before him.
