ty question, which induced a serious
consultation, ending in their all, with one accord, pitching upon the
author of the suggestion, as by far the best person to hide in the ruins
and catch the vampyre.

They then all set off at full speed; but the cunning fellow, who
certainly had not the slightest idea of so practically carrying out his
own suggestion, scampered off after them with a speed that soon brought
him in the midst of the throng again, and so, with fear in their looks,
and all the evidences of fatigue about them, they reached the town to
spread fresh and more exaggerated accounts of the mysterious conduct of
Varney the vampyre.

CHAPTER XLIV.

VARNEY'S DANGER, AND HIS RESCUE.--THE PRISONER AGAIN, AND THE
SUBTERRANEAN VAULT.

[Illustration]

We have before slightly mentioned to the reader, and not unadvisedly,
the existence of a certain prisoner, confined in a gloomy dungeon, into
whose sad and blackened recesses but few and faint glimmering rays of
light ever penetrated; for, by a diabolical ingenuity, the narrow
loophole which served for a window to that subterraneous abode was so
constructed, that, let the sun be at what point it might, during its
diurnal course, but a few reflected beams of light could ever find their
way into that abode of sorrow.

The prisoner--the same prisoner of whom we before spoke--is there.
Despair is in his looks, and his temples are still bound with those
cloths, which seemed now for many days to have been sopped in blood,
which has become encrusted in their folds.

He still lives, apparently incapable of movement. How he has lived so
long seems to be a mystery, for one would think him scarcely in a state,
even were nourishment placed to his lips, to enable him to swallow it.

It may be, however, that the mind has as much to do with that apparent
absolute prostration of all sort of physical energy as those bodily
wounds which he has received at the hands of the enemies who have
reduced him to his present painful and hopeless situation.

Occasionally a low groan burst from his lips; it seems to come from the
very bottom of his heart, and it sounds as if it would carry with it
every remnant of vitality that was yet remaining to him.

Then he moves restlessly, and repeats in hurried accents the names of
some who are dear to him, and far away--some who may, perchance, be
mourning him, but who know not, guess not, aught of his present
sufferings.

As he thus mov