He went down and made an inspection of the lower room, which was new to him, and, as they had done, tried to pull the table aside. And then he did what they had not attempted; he pushed at the table at one end and felt it move, at first slowly and then quickly, as though he had set in motion a counterweight. He had just time to swing himself on the table and grip its edge when the aperture appeared under his feet.

Dick saw the broken stair, and, sitting on the edge of the hole, dropped through to the rocky floor just as the table slid into its place. They pushed it back again and propped it, and Arthur and Gilder joined him below, carrying lanterns. He saw a piece of something dark on the floor and picked it up. It was a strip of silk.

“This is the way,” he said quietly. “I’ll work to the left; you go to the right, Gilder.”

Arthur made a rapid mental calculation.

“The left passage will lead you to the well, and unless I’m very much mistaken you will find the air-holes on your right-hand side. If you don’t mind, I’ll go with you.”

The men ascended the treacherous slope and came to the first of the air-holes, continued up until they reached the straight passage down which Leslie had made her fruitless journey. They too were brought to a halt by the wall barrier, and returned the way they had come. There was no sign of Leslie or Harry, but when Dick passed the alcove down which he had dropped from the Abbot’s room he found a burnt match-stalk.

He ascended again, a long, steady climb.

“We’re near the surface of the ground,” said Arthur.

Ahead of them the star lamp of Gilder showed. He was coming back to meet them.

“This passage ends in a sort of maze,” he reported. “There is a side passage, but that’s entirely blocked by stone.”

They went back with him to the place and Arthur Gine examined the debris.

“The roof has fallen in here,” he said. “How long ago it is impossible to tell. This stone is old, but I should think that the fall has been going on for years.”

They returned dispirited, and accompanied Gilder on his exploration of the maze. Though they tried passage after passage, they invariably found themselves back at the place where they had started. Dick made another inspection of the fallen roof. It had collapsed a few feet from the entrance; and, though he did not know this, there were twenty yards of crumbled rock between him and the little chamber where Leslie Gine was waiting for death.