where Denis should be waiting with the ready saddled steeds, if he has
done his duty as I bade."

As he thought this over to himself, breaking it up, as it were, into
sentences between which were whispered words of encouragement to those
who followed, bidding them come on, telling them that all was clear, and
to beware of "this angle," and the like, he passed on and on with
outstretched hands in front, his fingers gliding on either side over
smooth stone walls, till at last he was suddenly checked by a blank.

"Ah!" he muttered, as he felt about cautiously. "This should be the top
of the steps." And so it proved; for, proceeding carefully from the
angle along to his left, his advanced foot, as he glided it over the
floor, rested on an edge.

"The topmost stair," he muttered.

Making certain that it was, Leoni uttered fresh warnings, and then began
to descend, followed slowly by his companions. At the bottom they
proceeded for a while upon the level, when he was brought up short by
his fingers encountering on one side the great iron pintle of a hinge,
while the other touched the edge of a stone rebate, into which a heavy
door was sunk.

"Hah!" he uttered, with a sigh of relief. "Here is the way out of this
kingly fox-burrow." And his hand glided down the edge of the door till
it came in contact with a huge lock, about which for a few moments his
fingers played, while a chill ran through him, filling him with despair,
for the truth had come upon him like a flash: there was no key in the
lock; the door was fast; and just in this hour of triumph they were as
much prisoners as if they were in a cell.

"Well, Leoni," whispered Francis, "why are you stopping? This place
makes me feel as if I could not breathe."

"I am not stopping, sir," said the doctor bitterly; "I have been
stopped."

CHAPTER THIRTY TWO.

CHECK!--QUERY, MATE?

Feeling that the crisis had come, no sooner did Denis hear the first
strokes of the second chiming of the clock, which came so opportunely
upon the King's discovery, than the lad dashed off along the passage
leading towards the staircase that he would have to descend to gain the
inner court and the stabling.

But he had not proceeded many yards before he stopped short, startled by
the thought that if he continued by this corridor he would come right
upon some gentleman of the household, whose nightly duty it was to be on
guard at the angle of the gallery which led towards the Ki