comes good. I'll try that
sherry too, Burdon, and we'll put some fresh in its place. But if
that's left twenty years, we shall never live to taste it, eh?"

I shook my head sadly as I worked away in that arch, easily reaching the
top bricks, which were only six feet from the sawdust; and, as is often
the case, what had seemed a terrible job proved to be easy.

"There," he says; "the place will be sweeter now. We'll just have a
glance at the old chests, and then we must build up the empty bottles
again. To-morrow, I'll order in some more wine--for my son."

He said that last so solemnly that I looked up at him as he stood there
with the light shining in his eyes.

"As'll come back some day, sorry for the past, Sir John," I said, "and
ready to do what you wish."

"Please God, Burdon!" he says, bowing his head for a bit. Then he
looked up quite sharply, and took a candle, and I the other. "Come
along," he says in his old, quiet, stern way; and I was half afraid I
had offended him, as he stepped in at the opening and stood at the mouth
of the inner cellar. Then I heard him give a sharp sniff; and I smelt
it too--that same odour of burnt oil. We neither of us spoke as we
walked over the damp black sawdust, both thinking of the likelihood of
foul air being in the place; but we found we could breathe all right;
and as we held up the candles, the light shone on the black-looking old
chests, every one with its padlocks and seals all right, just as we had
left them all those years before.

I looked up at Sir John, and he gave me a satisfied nod as he tried one
of the seals, and then we both stood as if turned to stone, for from
just at my feet there came a dull knocking sound, and as I looked down,
I could see the black sawdust shake.

What I wanted to do was to run, for I felt that the place was haunted;
but I couldn't move, and when I looked at Sir John, he was holding up
his right hand, as if to order me to be silent. Then he held his candle
down, for there was another sound, but this time more of a grinding
cracking in a dull sort of way, just as if some one was forcing an iron
chisel in between the joints of the stones. Then there was a long
pause, and I half thought it had been fancy; but soon after, as I stood
there hardly able to breathe, the sawdust just in one place was heaved
up about an inch.

I was terribly alarmed, not knowing what to think; but Sir John was
brave as brave, and he signed to me no