y the flooring-slab, which went all the
length of the slit! He would try to raise it! That would want a
crowbar! but having got so far, he would not rest till he knew more! It
must be very late and the domestics all in bed; but what hour it was he
could not tell, for he had left his watch in his room. It might be
midnight and he burrowing like a mole about the roots of the old house,
or like an evil thing in the heart of a man! No matter! he would follow
up his search--after what, he did not know.

He crept up, and out of the castle by his own stair, so to the
tool-house. It was locked. But lying near was a half-worn shovel: that
might do! he would have a try with it! Like one in a dream of ancient
ruins, creeping through mouldy and low-browed places, he went down once
more into the entrails of the house.

Inserting the sharp edge of the worn shovel in the gap between the
stone and that next it, he raised it more readily than he had hoped,
and saw below it a small window, whose sill sloped steeply inward. How
deep the place might be, and whether it would be possible to get out of
it again, he must discover before entering. He took a letter from his
pocket, lighted it, and threw it in. It revealed a descent of about
seven feet, into what looked like a cellar. He blew his candle out, put
it in his pocket, got into the window, slid down the slope, and reached
his new level with ease. He then lighted his candle, and looked about
him.

His eye first fell on a large flat stone in the floor, like a
gravestone, but without any ornament or inscription. It was a roughly
vaulted place, unpaved, its floor of damp hard-beaten earth. In the
wall to the right of that through which he had entered, was another
opening, low down, like the crown of an arch the rest of which was
beneath the floor. As near as he could judge, it was right under the
built-up door in the passage above. He crept through it, and found
himself under the spiral of the great stair, in the small space at the
bottom of its well. On the floor lay a dust-pan and a
house-maid's-brush--and there was the tiny door at which they were
shoved in, after their morning's use upon the stair! It was
open--inwards; he crept through it: he was in the great hall of the
house--and there was one of its windows wide open! Afraid of being by
any chance discovered, he put out his light, and proceeded up the stair
in the dark.

He had gone but a few steps when he heard the sound of d