ght of wooden
steps, wet in the rain, reached to a small, enclosed porch or
vestibule, whence a door, now tight shut, gave ingress into the second
story of the church.

Thence, as Dunburne stood without, he could now distinguish the dull
muttering of a man's voice, which he opined might be that of the
preacher. Our young gentleman, as may be supposed, was in a wretched
plight. He was ragged and unshaven; his only clothing was the miserable
shirt and bepatched breeches that had served him as shelter throughout
the long voyage. These abominable garments were now wet to the skin,
and so displeasing was his appearance that he was forced to acknowledge
to himself that he did not possess enough of humility to avow so great
a misery to the light and to the eyes of strangers. Accordingly,
finding some shelter afforded by the vestibule of the church, he
crouched there in a corner, huddling his rags about him, and finding a
certain poor warmth in thus hiding away from the buffeting of the chill
and penetrating wind. As he so crouched he presently became aware of
the sound of many voices, dull and groaning, coming from within the
edifice, and then--now and again--the clanking as of a multitude of
chains. Then of a sudden, and unexpectedly, the door near him was flung
wide open, and a faint glow of reddish light fell across the passage.
Instantly the figure of a man came forth, and following him came, not a
congregation, as Dunburne might have supposed, but a most dolorous
company of nearly, or quite, naked men and women, outlined blackly, as
they emerged, against the dull illumination from behind. These wretched
beings, sighing and groaning most piteously, with a monotonous wailing
of many voices, were chained by the wrist, two and two together, and as
they passed by close to Dunburne, his nostrils were overpowered by a
heavy and fetid odor that came partly from within the building, partly
from the wretched creatures that passed him by.

As the last of these miserable beings came forth from the bowels of
that dreadful place, a loud voice, so near to Dunburne as to startle
his ears with its sudden exclamation, cried out, "Six-and-twenty, all
told," and thereat instantly the dull light from within was quenched
into darkness.

In the gloom and the silence that followed, Dunburne could hear for a
while nothing but the dash of the rain upon the roof and the ceaseless
drip and trickle of the water running from the eaves into the pudd