em. The sacristan called back, but Ramiro fiercely bade him to be
silent, adding:

"Are we all to be snared for the sake of one priest?"

So they went on, till presently in that great place his shouts grew
fainter, and were lost in the roar of the multitude without.

"Here is the spot," muttered the sacristan, after feeling the floor with
his hands, and by a dim ray of moonlight which just then pierced the
windows of the choir, Adrian saw that there was a hole in the pavement
before him.

"Descend, there are steps," said their guide. "I will shut the stone,"
and one by one they passed down six or seven narrow steps into some
darksome place.

"Where are we?" asked a priest of the verger, when he had pulled the
stone close and joined them.

"In the family vault of the noble Count van Valkenburg, whom your
reverence buried three days ago. Fortunately the masons have not yet
come to cement down the stone. If your Excellencies find it close, you
can get air by standing upon the coffin of the noble Count."

Adrian did find it close, and took the hint, to discover that in a line
with his head was some filigree stonework, pierced with small apertures,
the front doubtless of the marble tomb in the church above, for through
them he could see the pale moon rays wavering on the pavement of the
choir. As he looked the priest at his side muttered:

"Hark! The doors are down. Aid us, St. Pancras!" and falling upon his
knees he began to pray very earnestly.

Yielding at last to the blows of the battering-beam, the great portals
had flown open with a crash, and now through them poured the mob. On
they came with a rush and a roar, like that of the sea breaking through
a dyke, carrying in their hands torches, lanterns hung on poles, axes,
swords and staves, till at length they reached the screen of wonderful
carved oak, on the top of which, rising to a height of sixty feet above
the floor of the church, stood the great Rood, with the images of the
Virgin and St. John on either side. Here, of a sudden, the vastness
and the silence of the holy place which they had known, every one, from
childhood, with its echoing aisles, the moonlit, pictured windows, its
consecrated lamps twinkling here and there like fisher lights upon the
darkling waters, seemed to take hold of them. As at the sound of the
Voice Divine sweeping down the wild waves at night, the winds ceased
their raving and the seas were still, so now, beneath the silent
repr