"I have it!"
He felt a tiny knob of rock, and, pressing on it, the wall began to move away slowly and heavily, but without a sound. The moment he took his hand away, the rocky door stood still, leaving a crevice sufficiently wide for them to peep through.
Hiding the lantern's light so that it should not betray them, they saw a long passage, three or four feet wide, but almost in darkness. The only light it contained was that of a smoking lamp hanging on the wall far down the corridor.
"Shall we venture?" asked the ranger.
"What use was it to come so far, and not go farther?" Roye asked almost testily. "We have to get my master out of this."
While he spoke he put out his hand and pressed the door farther open. Then, brushing past the others, he stood in the passage. Engel and Herman followed. Thrusting the door back into its place, careful not to send it too far, for the latch to catch, they looked at it in such dim light as there was, and saw that it fitted into the roughly built wall so well that none would suspect the presence of a door when thrust back completely. It was clear to them that it was a secret entrance and exit, the existence of which had probably been forgotten.
"Now for the next thing," said the ranger, glancing up and down the passage anxiously. "Put your minds on that plan in my home, and you will remember we had to take the first turning to the left. It comes half-way between us here and that light yonder."
He led the way, going softly and cautiously, ready for advance or retreat, as things might chance. Ere many yards had been traversed they came to an opening on the left, and it led up some winding steps, past doorways from none of which came any sound or sign of life or light on the other sides. The stairway opened on a long corridor, broad and pretentious. Some of the doorways had heavy curtains hanging over them, and one into which they peered, since the door was wide open, showed the great banqueting-hall, with tapestries on the walls, casques and bucklers, antlers, and many other relics of the chase in the forest. Across the hall at the upper end ranged the high table at which the lord of the castle sat, and the other tables ran down by the walls, leaving the central space clear.
To linger was dangerous, and yet the nearer way to Tyndale's cell lay through the hall.
"I'll not venture," Engel muttered, listening intently for any sound of approaching voices or footsteps, and realising, like the others, that in this escapade they were almost challenging death. "We'll go round, for who can tell what men may come into the place when we are half-way across the floor of that hall? We should never get to yonder door, nor any other door, except a dungeon one."