"No; but we will try it now. She may be concealed within it, after all," said Mr. Benthwick. And seeing the crowbar, he took it up and went to work upon that immovable door; but finding it so fast, he threw down the tool, saying:
"It is of no use to work at that door in that way, and it is of no use either to look through the bars, for you can see nothing but black darkness. But, Purley, I will tell you what to do. Do you go and cut the most resinous knot that you can find on the nearest pine tree, and bring it to me."
Purley started off in a hurry, and soon returned with a pine knot fairly soaked with turpentine.
"Now, then," said Mr. Benthwick, as he took the torch from the hand of his messenger. "I think this will throw some light into the darkness below!"
And he applied it first to the fire in the aisle, and then he carried, it, flaming high, to the door of the vault, and putting it through the iron bars, let it drop into the vault.
It was lighted up in an instant, and the sheriff and Purley bent down to look through the grating to see what the interior illumination might show them.
And Lyon Berners, whose anxiety was of course more intense than that of any one present, elbowed his way through the crowd to get nearer the door of the vault.
But before he could effect his purpose, a sound of thunder burst upon the air; the solid floor upheaved; the walls of the old Haunted Chapel fell in a heap of smoking ruins; and all the valley and the mountain tops were lighted up with the flames of destruction.