to strike a match. I felt my way along by the wall till I came to a door on the left; it was locked. A little further was another door, also locked. I listened intently, for I fancied I could hear a faint murmur of voices, but I was not sure. Then I startled myself by stepping on nothing — I was at the head of a flight of stone steps; down below I could distinguish an almost imperceptible glimmer of light.

“I’m in for it. Here goes!” I reflected, and I crept down the steps one by one, and in due course reached the bottom. To the left was a doorway, through which came the glimmer of light. Passing through the doorway, I came into a room with a stone floor. The light, which was no stronger than the very earliest intimation of a winter’s dawn, seemed to issue in a most unusual way from the far