k at those cells. And, leaving the
stone trap-slab open, he went down the black stairway into the blacker
depths below, flicking the light of his torch about and going from cell
to cell. One might swear that the place was centuries old. Rusty old
barred doors, rustier old chains hanging from rings in the walls.
Nothing modern, nothing that looked as if it had known use or been
disturbed for these hundreds of years; nothing that---- Hello! There was
a break in the illusion, at all events: a garden spade, with fresh earth
clinging to the blade of it, leaning against the wall. Fancy a man so
careful of preserving an atmosphere of antiquity letting one of the
gardeners leave---- No, b'gad! it hadn't been left merely by chance. It
had been brought here for use, and was probably left for _further_ use.
There was a place over in that corner that most decidedly had been
recently dug up.

He walked over to the place in question and directed the glow of the
torch so that the circle of light fell full upon it. Somebody had been
digging in the earthen floor of the cell, and had made an attempt to
hide the fact by sprinkling bits of stone and plaster scraped from the
walls over it. In the ordinary course of things, and with a light less
powerful than this of the electric torch, the thing would have passed
muster very well, and would, in all probability, have escaped
observation. Now, asked Cleek of himself, what the dickens should any
one wish to dig in this place for? And, having dug, why try to disguise
the fact? Hum-m-m!

He switched round suddenly, walked to the place where the spade stood,
in the angle of the wall opposite, took it up, and, returning, began to
dig where the digging had been done before.

This he had to do in the darkness, for the moment his thumb was removed
from the button of the torch the light went out. But, having once
located the place, this was not difficult, for the earth, having once
before been disturbed, yielded easily to the spade.

For five--possibly six--minutes he worked on, shovelling out the loose
earth and tossing it aside unseen; then, of a sudden, the spade
encountered something which, though soft and yielding, would not allow
the blade to penetrate it at all, press his foot down as hard as he
might. If Cleek knew anything at all, he knew that that betokened a
fabric of some sort, and knew, too, that he had got to the bottom of the
original excavation.

He laid aside the spade, and the