ide walls faced with stone, the roof supported by roughly
hewn oak beams. I was convinced there was no great weight of earth
resting upon these, and the tunnel, which I followed without difficulty,
or the discovery of any serious obstruction, for fifty feet, inclined
steadily upward, until, in my judgment, it must have come within a very
few feet of the surface. Here there occurred a sharp turn to the right,
and the excavation advanced almost upon a level.

Knowing nothing of the conformation above, or of the location of
buildings, I was obliged to press forward blindly, conserving the faint
light of the candle, and praying for a free passage. It was an experience
to test the nerves, the intense stillness, the bare, gray walls, cold to
the touch, the beams grazing my head, and upholding that mass of earth
above, the intense darkness before and behind, with only the flickering
radius of yellow light barely illuminating where I trod. Occasionally the
wood creaked ominously, and bits of earth, jarred by my passage, fell
upon me in clods. Altogether it was an experience I have no desire to
repeat, although I was in no actual danger for some distance. Old
Mortimer had built his tunnel well, and through all the years it had held
safely, except where water had soaked through, rotting the timbers. The
candle was sputtering with a final effort to remain alight when I came to
the first serious obstruction. I had barely time in which to mark the
nature of the obstacle before the flame died in the socket, leaving me in
a blackness so profound it was like a weight. For the moment I was
practically paralyzed by fear, my muscles limp, my limbs trembling. Yet
to endeavor to push forward was no more to be dreaded than to attempt
retracing my steps. In one way there was hope; in the other none.

With groping fingers I verified the situation, as that brief glance ere
the candle failed had revealed it. A beam had fallen letting down a mass
of earth, but was wedged in such a way as to leave a small opening above
the floor, barely sufficient for a man to wiggle through. How far even
this slight passage extended, or what worse obstruction lay hidden beyond
was all conjecture. It was a mere chance in which I must risk life in
hope of saving it--I might become helplessly wedged beneath the timbers,
or any movement might precipitate upon me a mass of loosened earth. It
was a horrid thought, the death of a burrowing rat; and I dare not let my
min