ons for the work, and
would commence any day I would name.

The day was accordingly fixed. I repaired to the haunted house--we went
into the blind dreary room, took up the skirting, and then the floors.
Under the rafters, covered with rubbish, was found a trap-door, quite
large enough to admit a man. It was closely nailed down, with clamps and
rivets of iron. On removing these we descended into a room below, the
existence of which had never been suspected. In this room there had been
a window and a flue, but they had been bricked over, evidently for many
years. By the help of candles we examined this place; it still retained
some moldering furniture--three chairs, an oak settle, a table--all of
the fashion of about eighty years ago. There was a chest of drawers
against the wall, in which we found, half-rotted away, old-fashioned
articles of a man's dress, such as might have been worn eighty or a
hundred years ago by a gentleman of some rank--costly steel buttons and
buckles, like those yet worn in court-dresses, a handsome court
sword--in a waistcoat which had once been rich with gold lace, but which
was now blackened and foul with damp, we found five guineas, a few
silver coins, and an ivory ticket, probably for some place of
entertainment long since passed away. But our main discovery was in a
kind of iron safe fixed to the wall, the lock of which it cost us much
trouble to get picked.

In this safe were three shelves, and two small drawers. Ranged on the
shelves were several small bottles of crystal, hermetically stoppered.
They contained colorless volatile essences, of the nature of which I
shall only say that they were not poisonous--phosphor and ammonia
entered into some of them. There were also some very curious glass
tubes, and a small pointed rod of iron, with a large lump of rock
crystal, and another of amber--also a loadstone of great power.

In one of the drawers we found a miniature portrait set in gold, and
retaining the freshness of its colors most remarkably, considering the
length of time it had probably been there. The portrait was that of a
man who might be somewhat advanced in middle life, perhaps forty-seven
or forty-eight.

It was a remarkable face--a most impressive face. If you could fancy
some mighty serpent transformed into a man, preserving in the human
lineaments the old serpent type, you would have a better idea of that
countenance than long descriptions can convey; the width and flatnes