The air that came from below smelt fairly fresh and was not dank. But the darkness was impenetrable.
Presently Mansel returned, with the searchlight in working order, and, when we had made this fast, we lowered it into the hole.
The first thing its beam revealed was the “bed” upon which any victim of the trap must fall.
This was nothing less than a Cornish stile, that is to say, six low, thin fences of stone, built parallel and eighteen inches apart. As these were full forty feet below the trap, that anyone, falling upon them from the staircase, could fail to be broken in pieces was unthinkable. The very look of them shocked us, for it was terrible to regard preparation so nice, deliberate and permanent to send a fellow creature to meet his God.
Presently Hanbury spoke.
“Let me go down,” he said. “I’m not afraid of ghosts.”
“I’ll come with you,” said I. “It’s a two-men job.”
When Mansel had brought the searchlight, he had brought a rope also, as well as the measuring-line. But he had not brought the seat which we had used in the well; so Rowley was sent for this and for a loose cushion, which we could use as a pad between the rope and the stone.
While he was gone, Mansel kept snuffing the air and, after a little, announced that the oubliette had some opening we could not see.
“I can feel no draught,” he said, “but I’ll swear that this air is fresh. And that’s as it should be. It was sometimes advisable to empty an oubliette, but to use the trap for that purpose would have been inconvenient. There was, therefore, a second entrance.” He stopped there to clap Hanbury on the back. “If I am right,” he continued, “and such an entrance exists on the northern or river side—well, if George Hanbury likes to demand two thirds of the treasure as his share, I don’t believe we can fairly dispute his claim.”
Though I had not Mansel’s foresight, I heartily agreed, for, if we had air to breathe the dungeon was plainly the place from which to drive our shaft, and, though a vent-hole would conduct the sound of our labour, provided it gave upon the river, there would be no one to hear.
Then Rowley returned with the seat and the loose cushion, and, without more ado, Hanbury was lowered into the oubliette. When he was down, I followed, full of instructions from Mansel to walk delicately and, above all things, not to give tongue, “for,” said he, “there is never any mistaking a voice which comes from underground, and, if, as I think, we have found the clue to our labyrinth, it would be a thousand pities to put the enemy wise.”
The dungeon was some thirty feet square and roughly walled with stones, laid in cement. The weight of the turret was taken by three tremendous piers, between two of which lay the stile: this hideous thing was built of clean-cut stone, with a low wall at either end to hold the fences in place. The piers and the stile stood in a corner of the dungeon and took up much of its room. The place did not seem very damp, but was chill and smelt of the earth. So far as we could see, the walls were everywhere sound.
All this I observed with difficulty, for Hanbury had found a doorway, before I was down, and would scarcely permit me to look around for impatience to see whither the postern led.
The doorway was barred by an old, iron gate, with a great clumsy lock, whose tongues, when shot, protruded into the stone jamb: but, though the gate was closed, it was not locked—an old negligence, I suppose, of some varlet which the Count himself might have pardoned, since the dead cannot open gates whether they be fastened or no.
The doorway admitted to a passage some five feet wide. This began at once to descend: there were no steps, but a very steep, smooth incline, upon which, such was its angle, it would have been easy to fall: but some old, iron dogs, cemented at regular intervals into the walls, afforded handhold.
We descended gingerly: Hanbury went first, and I came behind him, with the lamp in my hand.
We had gone, it seemed, a long way, when the passage ran suddenly into another chamber, not so big as the first and, though lofty, not nearly so high. Its longer wall—for it was rectangular—was before us and contained three deep embrasures, the slits of which were rudely blocked with timbers, which were barred, like shutters, into place. That these windows looked out upon the world was evident, for, so soon as we masked the searchlight, little streaks of daylight were appearing from all three. And from them, of course, came the air which had kept the great dungeon fresh.
At first it seemed that this was as far as we could go, but, after a little, we found a loose slab in a corner, close to the window wall. This was round, like a cellar-plate, and might have sealed the mouth of a cistern, for a bar had been sunk in its middle, by which a strong man could lift it out of its place.
We were by now quite sure that we were in a gallery which had been cut out of the cliff and that, when the shutters were down, we should see the river below us and the road on its farther side: but, though to my mind it did not matter—for, by the embrasures, we could have plenty of air—the slab did not look to me as though it was concealing an entrance, because, for one thing, it was round and, for another, too small to be hiding a flight of steps. And here I was at once right and wrong, for, when I had lifted
