defeat of Risingham that had disturbed Sir Daniel.
They had run the gauntlet under cover of the darkness; they had been
admitted by the great gate; and now, with a great stamping of hoofs and
jingle of accoutrements and arms, they were dismounting in the court.

"He will return anon," said Dick. "To the trap!"

He lighted a lamp, and they went together into the corner of the room.
The open chink through which some light still glittered was easily
discovered, and, taking a stout sword from his small armoury, Dick thrust
it deep into the seam, and weighed strenuously on the hilt. The trap
moved, gaped a little, and at length came widely open. Seizing it with
their hands, the two young folk threw it back. It disclosed a few steps
descending, and at the foot of them, where the would-be murderer had left
it, a burning lamp.

"Now," said Dick, "go first and take the lamp. I will follow to close
the trap."

So they descended one after the other, and as Dick lowered the trap, the
blows began once again to thunder on the panels of the door.

CHAPTER IV--THE PASSAGE

The passage in which Dick and Joanna now found themselves was narrow,
dirty, and short. At the other end of it, a door stood partly open; the
same door, without doubt, that they had heard the man unlocking. Heavy
cobwebs hung from the roof; and the paved flooring echoed hollow under
the lightest tread.

Beyond the door there were two branches, at right angles. Dick chose one
of them at random, and the pair hurried, with echoing footsteps, along
the hollow of the chapel roof. The top of the arched ceiling rose like a
whale's back in the dim glimmer of the lamp. Here and there were
spyholes, concealed, on the other side, by the carving of the cornice;
and looking down through one of these, Dick saw the paved floor of the
chapel--the altar, with its burning tapers--and stretched before it on
the steps, the figure of Sir Oliver praying with uplifted hands.

At the other end, they descended a few steps. The passage grew narrower;
the wall upon one hand was now of wood; the noise of people talking, and
a faint flickering of lights, came through the interstices; and presently
they came to a round hole about the size of a man's eye, and Dick,
looking down through it, beheld the interior of the hall, and some half a
dozen men sitting, in their jacks, about the table, drinking deep and
demolishing a venison pie. These were certainly some of the late