ld say
anything, he moved across to the uncovered stone with the ring in it.
Exerting a strength which I should have believed entirely impossible in
his weak condition, he applied to the stone a lever which lay ready at
hand. Raffaelle at the same time seized the ring, and so they were able
between them to move the covering to one side sufficiently to allow
access to a small staircase which thus appeared to view. The stair
was a winding one, and once led no doubt to some vaults below the
ground-floor. Raffaelle descended first, taking in his hand the sconce
of three candles, which he held above his head so as to fling a light
down the steps. John went next, and then I followed, trying to support
my brother if possible with my hand. The stairs were very dry, and
on the walls there was none of the damp or mould which fancy usually
associates with a subterraneous vault. I do not know what it was I
expected to see, but I had an uneasy feeling that I was on the brink of
some evil and distressing discovery. After we had descended about twenty
steps we could see the entry to some vault or underground room, and it
was just at the foot of the stairs that I saw something lying, as the
light from the candles fell on it from above. At first I thought it was
a heap of dust or refuse, but on looking closer it seemed rather a
bundle of rags. As my eyes penetrated the gloom, I saw there was about
it some tattered cloth of a faded green tint, and almost at the same
minute I seemed to trace under the clothes the lines or dimensions of a
human figure. For a moment I imagined it was some poor man lying face
downwards and bent up against the wall. The idea of a man or of a dead
body being there shocked me violently, and I cried to my brother, "Tell
me, what is it?" At that instant the light from. Raffaelle's candles
fell in a somewhat different direction. It lighted up the white bowl
of a human skull, and I saw that what I had taken for a man's form was
instead that of a clothed skeleton. I turned faint and sick for an
instant, and should have fallen had it not been for John, who put his
arm about me and sustained me with an unexpected strength.

"God help us!" I exclaimed, "let us go. I cannot bear this; there are
foul vapours here; let us get back to the outer air."

He took me by the arm, and pointing at the huddled heap, said, "Do you
know whose bones those are? That is Adrian Temple. After it was all
over, they flung his body down the