"To you," she was saying, "there shall be no such person in all the world as Warbeck. You must forget even that there was ever such a name. Your future——"
Her concluding remarks were lost to Sir Richard's hearing. Lady Anna then brushed aside the drapery and disappeared out of the room. For many minutes thereafter the youth's eyes remained fixed upon the swinging draperies, motionless and longingly, whilst down his pallid cheeks coursed many a bitter tear.
Leaving him to his sorrow, which would have been more poignant had he been enabled to look into that future that Lady Anna was holding before him as a lure, Sir Richard continued warily on his journey along the pinched passageway. By the squares of light thrown at long but regular intervals against the right wall, he divined that the secret exit was pierced with windows throughout its entire length. Through each of these he stole a look as he advanced, being obliged to stand always on tip-toe to make his brief surveys. He gathered the information that a suite of six large rooms had been set aside for the uses of the handsome youth. There was an entrance giving upon the last from the secret passageway. The young knight made no attempt to open it then, but crept onward and looked through the next window. Between the floor of the last room and the floor of the spacious hall into which he was now looking there was a sheer drop of thirty feet; perhaps even more. From the long table standing in its center and the chairs arranged in tiers round about, he took it to be a council hall, a place of formal meetings of state. It was surmounted by a lofty, domed ceiling, decorated with multi-colored glass, corresponding with the panes through which he was having a view of the chamber.
Pursuing his way onward past the row of windows opening upon the hall, he arrived soon at the end of the passageway, which was marked by a yawning vent-hole, with the opening at his feet dropping into abysmal depths of darkness, and the one above his head gaping like a sooty flue. Iron rungs set securely into the masonry of the wall furthest removed from him disappeared into the swart obscurity above and below.
Consumed with curiosity and a desire to push his explorations to the end, he stepped across, set his foot upon the ladder, and clambered skyward. A trap-door, securely battened from within, stopped his progress at the top. Surmising that it opened upon a runway of one of the many embattled towers, he started downward. Past the floor of the passageway he lowered himself, down, down, till it seemed to him that he was penetrating into the very belly of the earth. At the bottom he came upon a kind of square room, with a massive, barred door opening from one of its sides. The air here was excessively damp, chill, and fetid with noisome odors.
So noiselessly as might be he shot back the rusty bolts and made shift to open the heavy door. Slowly it yielded to his violent exertions, its unused hinges shrilly protesting every inch of the way. When he had swung it sufficiently wide to admit the passage of his body, he was confronted by the flare of a single candle. Even this faint light, upon emerging from such dense darkness, completely dazzled his blinking eyes, rendering them momentarily sightless.
"Well, ... by the rood!" the most welcome of voices then rang in his ears. "I was looking to see a grisly phantom shape come gliding through yon creaking door to devour me! And certes 'tis your own good self, Sir Dick, ... eh? Give you a very good-morrow, ... or a very good-even.... I' faith, I know not down here the hours of the passing day. Everything, as 't were, being of a similar color. But fillip me for a fat toad, an you're not a most pleasing apparition, Sir Dick; ... a most welcome ghost, ... eh!"
Sir Richard strode forward and took de Claverlok's hand in a firm grip.
"I'll wager, my boy," said the grizzled knight with his usual hearty laugh, "that you've fair turned this castle upside down in your endeavors to unearth me, ... eh? But for long have I been conducting a quiet truce with Heaven, where, Sir Dick, I fancied that you had some days since preceded me. How comes it that you're still alive, and looking as hearty, by my faith, as a prancing yearling. Did you deliver the paper, ... eh?"
"Certes did I deliver it," replied Sir Richard. "And let us for all time, my friend, drop the subject of King Henry's message between us. You can see that you have been led into a sad error as to its contents. I am now biding in Yewe as Douglas's guest till the business of my sovereign be completed."