h fresh
rust."

"Here is one of my chemical matches," said Mr. Chillingworth, as he
suddenly irradiated the pew with a clear and beautiful flame, that
lasted about a minute.

The heads of the screws were easily discernible, and the short time that
the light lasted had enabled Henry to turn the key he had brought with
him in the lock.

"I think that without a light now," he said, "I can turn the screws
well."

"Can you?"

"Yes; there are but four."

"Try it, then."

Henry did so, and from the screws having very large heads, and being
made purposely, for the convenience of removal when required, with deep
indentations to receive the screw-driver, he found no difficulty in
feeling for the proper places, and extracting the screws without any
more light than was afforded to him from the general whitish aspect of
the heavens.

"Now, Mr. Chillingworth," he said "another of your matches, if you
please. I have all the screws so loose that I can pick them up with my
fingers."

"Here," said the doctor.

In another moment the pew was as light as day, and Henry succeeded in
taking out the few screws, which he placed in his pocket for their
greater security, since, of course, the intention was to replace
everything exactly as it was found, in order that not the least surmise
should arise in the mind of any person that the vault had been opened,
and visited for any purpose whatever, secretly or otherwise."

"Let us descend," said Henry. "There is no further obstacle, my friends.
Let us descend."

"If any one," remarked George, in a whisper, as they slowly descended
the stairs which conducted into the vault--"if any one had told me that
I should be descending into a vault for the purpose of ascertaining if a
dead body, which had been nearly a century there, was removed or not,
and had become a vampyre, I should have denounced the idea as one of the
most absurd that ever entered the brain of a human being."

"We are the very slaves of circumstances," said Marchdale, "and we never
know what we may do, or what we may not. What appears to us so
improbable as to border even upon the impossible at one time, is at
another the only course of action which appears feasibly open to us to
attempt to pursue."

They had now reached the vault, the floor of which was composed of flat
red tiles, laid in tolerable order the one beside the other. As Henry
had stated, the vault was by no means of large extent. Indeed, several
of the