Go back to bed?
No, I would follow her, and if we met would make the same excuse.

Thus I might get some tidings, or perhaps--a dagger thrust.
So round the corner and up the steps I went, noiselessly as a snake.
They were many and winding, like those of a church tower, but at length I came to the head of them, where was a little landing, and opening from it a door.

It was a very ancient door; the light streamed through cracks where its panels had rotted, and from the room beyond came the sound of voices, those of the Shaman Simbri and the Khania.
"Have you learned aught, my niece ?" I heard him say, and also heard her answer---"A little.

A very little." Then in my thirst for knowledge I grew bold, and stealing to the door, looked through one of the cracks in its wood.

Opposite to me, in the full flood of light thrown by a hanging lamp, her hand resting on a table at which Simbri was seated, stood the Khania.