said the accomplice, and departed on his errand,
after previously showing me the staircase that led to the apartment of
my sick father.

When the rascal's steps were no longer heard, "Now, Pigtop," said I,
"show your pluck, help me to lock and bar the hall-door--good--so one
bloodhound is disposed of; he dare not make a noise, lest he should
rouse the establishment. Now follow me--but, hark ye, no murder: the
reptile's life must be spared."

Pigtop made no answer, but pointed to his scarred and disfigured lip,
with a truly ferocious grin.

It is necessary for the fully understanding of the catastrophe that
ensued, that I describe the site of the old building in which such
startling events were passing. The front approach was level from the
road; but on the back there was a precipitous, and rugged, and rocky
descent, up to the very buttresses that supported the old walls--not,
certainly, so great or so dangerous as to be called a precipice; for, on
the extreme right wing of the rear of the house, it was no more than a
gentle inclination of the soil, deepening rapidly towards the left, and
there, directly under the extremity of that wing, assuming the
appearance of a vast chasm, through the bottom of which a brawling
stream chafed the pointed stones, on its way to the adjacent sea.

Sir Reginald's sleeping-room was a large tapestried apartment on the
first-floor, the windows of which occupied the extreme of the left wing
of the house, and was directly over the deepest part of the chasm which
I have described.

All this part of the mansion was scaffolded also; the ends of the poles
having what appeared to be but a very precarious insertion on the
projections of the rocks below. It had been the intention of Sir
Reginald thoroughly to repair his mansion; but, falling sick, and in low
spirits, he had ordered the preparations to be delayed. The scaffolding
had been standing through the whole of the previous winter; and the
poles, and more especially the ropes that bound them to the cross-piece,
had already gone through several stages of decay.

CHAPTER SEVENTY.

CONCLUSION.

My associate and myself advanced stealthily and noiselessly up the
staircase. We met no one. The profoundest security seemed to reign
everywhere. Favoured by the dark shadows that hung around us, we
advanced to the door that was nearly wide open, and we then had a full
view of everything within. The picture was solemn. Seated in a ve