d window was, but the darkness was absolute, and
he stretched out one foot and his hands, as he began to move cautiously
along, feeling his way till he kicked against a loose stone.

This arrested him, and he tried in another direction for his foot to
come in contact with what seemed to be round, and proved to be a spar
lying in company with some carefully folded and rope-bound sails.

"The old rascal!" thought Archy, as he mentally pictured the stern, sad
countenance of Sir Risdon.

"Why, he must have a lugger of his own, and keep his stores in here."

A little feeling about convinced him that the window of the vault could
not be behind the pile of boat-gear against which he had stumbled, and
he moved slowly of! Again, to stop at the end of a yard or two, feeling
about with one foot.

"Why, I'm not shut up!" he cried joyously. "I'm out on the ledge. They
must have laid me here to be fetched off by the boat. Suppose the tide
had risen while I was asleep!"

But the joyous feeling went off as he stared about him. It had been
dark enough in a dense fog, but it did not feel dark and cold now, as if
there was a dense fog. Everything seemed dry, and though he listened
attentively, he could not hear the washing of the waves among the rocks,
nor smell the cool, moist, sea-weedy odour of the coast. Instead of
that a most unmistakable smell of brandy came into his nostrils.

And yet he seemed to be standing on that ledge close down to the water,
for as he stooped down now he could trace with his hand one of the huge,
curled-up shell-fish turned to the stone in which it was embedded,
while, as he felt about, there was another and another larger still.

He listened again.

No; he was not on the seashore. He must be in the vault beneath Sir
Risdon's house, and though he had not noticed it, the floor must be
paved with a layer of stones similar to those found where the little
kegs had been left.

He went cautiously on with outstretched hands through the intense
darkness, and his feet traced the flat curls of stone again and again,
but he did not find any wall, and now, as he made up his mind to go back
to where he had been when he first awoke, he found that he had not the
faintest idea as to which direction he ought to take.

As he grew more able to move and act, the sense of confusion which
suddenly arrested him was terrible--almost maddening.

Where was he? What was here on all sides? It could not be the cell