,
and felt much more at my ease. I suddenly recollected that although I
was in darkness it was daylight outside, and that the headless miller
was possibly resting quietly in his grave in the churchyard a mile away.

One thing I had to do, and that was to get out of my prison as soon as
possible. I felt round and round the vault. My great object was to
discover the steps by which my captors and I had descended, but to my
dismay I could not find them. Either they had been drawn up through a
trap-door above, or we had come through a door in the side of the vault
which had been closed by them when they went out. I searched and
searched in vain for such a door, one side consisting of a blank wall
partly of stone and partly of perpendicular timbers, which I concluded
supported the superstructure. This made me more certain than before
that I was in a vault beneath the old mill. I was in hopes by this time
that the smugglers had gone away, and that I should thus be able to make
my escape without interruption. How to do so was the question. I
remembered that we had descended the building by steps to the bottom of
the vault. I concluded, therefore, that the roof must be a considerable
height above my head. There were numerous boxes, chests, and bales, as
far as I could judge, in the vault, and if I had had light I should have
found, I thought, little difficulty in piling one upon another, and thus
reaching the top; but in the dark this was a difficult and hazardous
undertaking. I could scarcely expect to place them with sufficient
evenness to make a firm structure, and they might, after I had got up
some distance, topple down again with me under them, and perhaps an arm
or a leg broken. Still I could think of no other way of getting out. I
again felt about, and tried to lift some chests and bales, but they were
mostly too heavy for my strength; I might, however, discover some which
I could tackle.

It must be remembered that all this time I was perfectly ignorant of my
surroundings. I was, indeed, in the position of a blind man suddenly
placed in a position which he had never before visited without any one
to give him a description of the scenery. The only knowledge that I had
obtained of the vault was from the sense of touch. I now determined to
take a further survey, if so I could call it, of my prison, to start
from a certain point to feel my way round, and reach as high as I could,
to extend my arms, and to