in his mind. He saw he had been put upon his
trial, that he had once more betrayed his suspicions, and that, short of
some miracle, he was lost.

"If I cannot get me forth out of this house," he thought, "I am a dead
man! And this poor Matcham, too--to what a cockatrice's nest have I not
led him!"

He was still so thinking, when there came one in haste, to bid him help
in changing his arms, his clothing, and his two or three books, to a new
chamber.

"A new chamber?" he repeated. "Wherefore so? What chamber?"

"'Tis one above the chapel," answered the messenger.

"It hath stood long empty," said Dick, musing. "What manner of room is
it?"

"Nay, a brave room," returned the man. "But yet"--lowering his
voice--"they call it haunted."

"Haunted?" repeated Dick, with a chill. "I have not heard of it. Nay,
then, and by whom?"

The messenger looked about him; and then, in a low whisper, "By the
sacrist of St. John's," he said. "They had him there to sleep one night,
and in the morning--whew!--he was gone. The devil had taken him, they
said; the more betoken, he had drunk late the night before."

Dick followed the man with black forebodings.

CHAPTER III

THE ROOM OVER THE CHAPEL

From the battlements nothing further was observed. The sun journeyed
westward, and at last went down; but to the eyes of all these eager
sentinels no living thing appeared in the neighbourhood of Tunstall
House.

When the night was at length fairly come, Throgmorton was led to a room
overlooking an angle of the moat. Thence he was lowered with every
precaution; the ripple of his swimming was audible for a brief period;
then a black figure was observed to land by the branches of a willow and
crawl away among the grass. For some half-hour Sir Daniel and Hatch
stood eagerly giving ear; but all remained quiet. The messenger had got
away in safety.

Sir Daniel's brow grew clearer. He turned to Hatch.

"Bennet," said he, "this John Amend-All is no more than a man ye see. He
sleepeth. We will make a good end of him, go to!"

All the afternoon and evening Dick had been ordered hither and thither,
one command following another, till he was bewildered with the number
and the hurry of commissions. All that time he had seen no more of Sir
Oliver, and nothing of Matcham; and yet both the priest and the young
lad ran continually in his mind. It was now his chief purpose to escape
from Tunstall Moat House as speedily as might be; and y