While she made do as best she could with the can of hot water after she had barred the door again, she debated whether it would be worth while to go to the bathroom in defiance of Mrs Shurrock’s embargo and investigate the possibility of brushing her teeth. There was also another problem, but a solution to this had been provided, she discovered, by the installation of a large, bucket-like chamber-pot which she found on the mat at the further side of the bed.
This decided her. She had no particular wish to traverse the long, stair-broken corridor again, or to repair to the bathroom which was almost next-door to the forbidden lounge. The only course left was to go to bed. She had been between the sheets less than ten minutes, and was still very far from going to sleep, when she heard the first sounds outside her door. She sat up in bed and listened, half-expecting, because of Mrs Shurrock’s hints coupled with the precautions the landlord had taken by providing the bar to the door, that an attempt would be made to enter her room.
This was not the case. There was not so much as a tap at the door. All the same, the people, whoever they were, were anything but silent. There was the sound of bucolic voices in conversation and the clumping of countrymen’s heavy boots on the stone floor. Fenella had no doubt of where the visitors were going. They passed her door and she felt certain that they were descending the stone stairs at the bottom of which was the area with the trap-door in the floor.
Curiosity traditionally killed the cat, but Fenella’s mind, far from being on cats, was on goats, scorpions, lions, rams, and all the other signs of the zodiac which she had seen and recognised in the lounge, and she was persuaded that here might be her chance to find out more about the mummers whose meeting she had unwittingly invaded, unless, of course, the footsteps were merely those of the landlord and his friends going into the cellar for more beer.
She slipped out of bed, dressed with unusual speed, unbarred the door, went to the head of the stone staircase and listened. There was only one sound to be heard. She could distinguish none of the words, but a deep male voice was intoning what sounded like an invocation or a prayer. Fenella, herself praying in pagan fashion that she might not slip while she was descending the blacked-out spiral stair, put her hand on the newel-post and crept cautiously downwards, secure in the knowledge that her rubber-soled shoes were noiseless.
The thirteen people she had encountered in the forbidden zone of the lounge were standing in a circle round the open trap-door and three of them were carrying flaring, smoking torches. Fenella crept along the line of the wall to a dark corner where she knew she would be invisible, and just as she gained her vantage point, the intoning ceased and the speaker, who happened to be Leo, assuming what appeared to be his natural voice, said loudly,
‘And now the bidding. Thrice three times, and you all mind as you be word perfect, not to shame the dead. Now – takin’ your time from me, as we re’earsed it. One, two, three.’
Fenella had a good verbal memory, but, even had it been less receptive and retentive, she could hardly have failed to learn the doggerel which followed. It was spoken in unison and was repeated the nine times which the leader had stipulated.
‘Sagittarius be archer and shoot at the sun;
Capricorn butt bachelors and cause ’em to run;
Aquarius ’e stand wi’ ’is bucket o’ water,
Pisces come swimmin’ a christened babe arter.
Aries ’ave killed off the bleatin’ old wether,
Taurus come snortin’ to bring cows together;
Gemini twins be a man and an ooman;
Cancer walk side’ards, can’t see ’im a-comin’.
Leo be king o’ the dark jungly plain;
Virgo be matchless till Spring come again.
Libra hold fair and a true judgment give;
Scorpio be pi’son and stung men can’t live.
‘Ere us comes Mayerin’ all in a round,
Three times and nine times to dance on this ground.
Pick out a whole man and bury un deep,
Peace be upon ’is bones, sound may ’e sleep.’
The promised dance was a disappointment. The three torch-bearers twirled round three times, the others nine times, three twirls to the right, three to the left and three to the right again. There was no music, but at the end of each turn the company stamped three times, the sound of the men’s heavy boots echoing around the vault beneath their feet.
The next part of the ritual was interesting and macabre. Lighted by Aquarius, who was one of the three torch-bearers, Pisces, Aries and Taurus began to climb down the ladder which led to the crypt. Those left in the circle, which they re-formed so that the gaps were filled up, began a solemn dirge consisting of the words:
‘Home, get thee home,
No more to roam.
Thee we will lay to rest,
Dear soul, the Dear know best.
Sleep till the Judgment Day.
Lord, take this soul away.’
A shout from below acted as a signal to the next four mummers. The second torch-bearer, who happened to be Leo himself, led Cancer and the Gemini twins (who had to unhook the contraption which joined them together) into the depths, the dirge was repeated, and then the last of the zodiacs climbed down and Fenella could hear the weird chanting come booming up from below.
She longed to find out what was going on, but felt that she had dared enough and that, in any case, to follow the others into the crypt would lead to certain discovery. The attitude of five of the company had been sufficiently menacing when she had gate-crashed their meeting in the lounge to convince her that her presence among them in the crypt would be anything but
