pplication. It was a proposition I should have laughed at and held to
scorn prior to that time.

After leaving the shrine, it was only a few minutes till the coach
turned to the left into a narrow road, and we were approaching the end
of our rough journey. We continued to travel at a brisk trot and came
to the forest, "dark and wild," of which Lilly had spoken. Thus far his
"calculations" were correct, and I was beginning to take hope that they
would continue so to the end. After half an hour on the winding road
through the forest, the drivers halted at the gate of which Lilly had
spoken, and in ten minutes more drew rein beside the high brick wall
surrounding Merlin House.

Without the least trouble we found the gates or doors in the wall, and
truly enough, they were of "thick oak" so strong that we could not feel
them vibrate when we tried to shake them, and so firmly locked in the
middle that we almost despaired of opening them. The wall was too high
to scale, and for a moment it looked as though our journey had been in
vain. But Betty's keen wits came to our rescue.

When George and I had examined the gates and had almost despaired of
opening them, Betty undertook an inspection of her own, and presently
called our attention to a hole, perhaps four inches in diameter, in
each gate, which was hidden by round curtains of wood hung within, so
completely closing up the holes as to make them invisible save on close
examination. She suggested that we pass the trace chain through one hole,
draw it out through the other, hitch the horses to the two ends, and pull
down the wall if the gates refused to give way.

Her plan was so good that the horses soon opened the gate, though it
required a strong pull from all four of them to do it. Betty and I were
the first to enter, George following close at our heels. The two drivers,
who had taken the horses back to the coach, hitched them to a tree and
soon followed us, bringing the long leather reins to be used as climbing
ropes if necessary.

Hardly had we entered the gate till we saw a starlike gleam of light in a
window of a room in the third story of the tower, as Lilly had predicted.
While I was convinced that the light came through a hole in the curtain
rather than from a star held by Raphael to guide us, still my scepticism
was rapidly turning to awe.

We were speaking of the light when two great dogs came bounding out of
the darkness and attacked us. I drew my sword, a s