ke contrivance in which lay a few of the soldiers' cloaks for
which there was no room on the nails and hooks lately driven into the
wall.

But after a quarter of an hour's keen search, Roy gave it up.

"I am wasting time," he said.

"Yes, sir," said the sergeant; "but, as children say at play, you were
burning more than once."

Roy felt disposed to renew his quest, but he refrained, and the sergeant
went to the casement window, and as Roy watched him, opened it till it
stood at a certain angle, which allowed him to thrust down a pin and
secure it--a simple enough thing to do, and apparently to keep the wind
from blowing it to and fro.

"That unlocks the trap-door, sir," said the man. "If you open it more
or less, it doesn't act. Look here."

He opened the lid of the locker, and turned a catch over it to keep it
from shutting down again, then threw out the cloaks.

"Now pull up that end, sir."

Roy took hold of the panelled oaken side of the locker on his left, and
to his astonishment the end of the coffer-like affair glided easily up,
bringing with it one end of the oaken bottom; while the other end,
turning upon a pivot on the middle, went down, laying open a square
shaft going at a slope apparently into the thickness of the wall.

Roy uttered an ejaculation of wonder, while the sergeant struck a light,
lit a lantern, got feet first into the locker, and let himself slide;
and they saw him descend a dozen feet at an easy slope, stand upright,
and hold the light for them to follow and stand by him in a narrow
passage with an arched roof.

"Easy enough, when you know how," said the man.

"Ay, easy enough, when you know how," growled Ben, while Roy examined a
short, stout ladder hanging from a couple of hooks by the arched
ceiling.

"For going back?" he said.

"Yes, sir," was the reply, as the sergeant moved forward a few steps to
allow his men to follow, which they did as if quite accustomed to the
task.

The narrow passage ended at the top of a spiral staircase just wide
enough to allow a man to pass along, and down this he went with a light,
the others following, till they had descended to a great depth.

"Hundred steps," growled Ben, as they stood now in a square crypt-like
chamber, with a pointed archway in the centre of the wall at one end.

"There you are, sir," said the sergeant, holding up the lantern, "cut
right through the stone. It's as dry as tinder, though it does go
straight under the