d was easily
discovered, and, taking a stout sword from his small armoury, Dick
thrust it deep into the seam, and weighed strenuously on the hilt. The
trap moved, gaped a little, and at length came widely open. Seizing it
with their hands, the two young folk threw it back. It disclosed a few
steps descending, and at the foot of them, where the would-be murderer
had left it, a burning lamp.

"Now," said Dick, "go first and take the lamp. I will follow to close
the trap."

So they descended one after the other, and as Dick lowered the trap the
blows began once again to thunder on the panels of the door.

CHAPTER IV

THE PASSAGE

The passage in which Dick and Joanna now found themselves was narrow,
dirty, and short. At the other end of it, a door stood partly open; the
same door, without doubt, that they had heard the man unlocking. Heavy
cobwebs hung from the roof, and the paved flooring echoed hollow under
the lightest tread.

Beyond the door there were two branches, at right angles. Dick chose one
of them at random, and the pair hurried, with echoing footsteps, along
the hollow of the chapel roof. The top of the arched ceiling rose like a
whale's back in the dim glimmer of the lamp. Here and there were
spy-holes, concealed, on the other side, by the carving of the cornice;
and looking down through one of these, Dick saw the paved floor of the
chapel--the altar, with its burning tapers--and, stretched before it on
the steps, the figure of Sir Oliver praying with uplifted hands.

At the other end they descended a few steps. The passage grew narrower;
the wall upon one hand was now of wood; the noise of people talking, and
a faint flickering of lights, came through the interstices; and
presently they came to a round hole about the size of a man's eye, and
Dick, looking down through it, beheld the interior of the hall, and some
half a dozen men sitting, in their jacks, about the table, drinking deep
and demolishing a venison pie. These were certainly some of the late
arrivals.

"Here is no help," said Dick. "Let us try back."

"Nay," said Joanna; "maybe the passage goeth farther."

And she pushed on. But a few yards farther the passage ended at the top
of a short flight of steps; and it became plain that, as long as the
soldiers occupied the hall, escape was impossible upon that side.

They retraced their steps with all imaginable speed, and set forward to
explore the other branch. It was exceedingly n