mpossible to make out anything save the dull red glow of
what might be some embers on a distant hearth. Gaston did not speak a
word, but waited till all his companions had reached this more open
space, and had risen to their feet and grasped their weapons. Then all
held their breath, and listened for any sound that might by chance
reveal the presence of hidden foes, till they started at the sound of
Roger's voice speaking softly but with complete assurance.

"There is no one here," he said. "We are quite alone. Let me kindle a
torch and show you."

Roger, as Gaston had before observed, possessed a cat-like faculty of
seeing in the dark. Whether it was natural to him, or had been acquired
during those days spent almost entirely underground in the sorcerer's
vaulted chamber at Basildene, the youth himself scarcely knew. But he
was able to distinguish objects clearly in gloom which no ordinary eye
could penetrate; and now he walked fearlessly forward and stirred up the
smouldering embers, whose dull red glow all could see, into a quick,
bright, palpitating flame which illumined every corner of the strange
place into which they had penetrated.

Gaston and his men looked wonderingly around them, as they lighted their
lanterns at the fire and flashed them here and there into all the dark
corners, as though to assure themselves that there were no ambushed foes
lurking in the grim recesses of that circular room. But Roger had been
quite right. There was nothing living in that silent place. Not so much
as a loophole in the wall admitted any air or light from the outer
world, or could do so even in broad noon. The chamber was plainly
hollowed out in the mass of earth and masonry of which the foundations
of the Tower were composed, and if any air were admitted (as there must
have been, else men could not breathe down there), it was by some device
not easily discovered at a first glance.

It was in truth a strange and terrible place -- the dank walls, down
which the damp moisture slowly trickled, hung round with instruments of
various forms, all designed with a terrible purpose, and from their look
but too often used.

Gaston's face assumed a look of dark wrath and indignation as his quick
eyes roved round this evil place, and he set his teeth hard together as
he muttered to himself:

"Heaven send that the Prince himself may one day look upon the vile
secrets of this charnel house! I would that he and his royal father
might