“Don’t talk to me, please,” said Fred, as he watched his father go where his horse was being held, and saw him mount and ride thoughtfully away.
“Now, Samson, quick! and don’t point or seem to be taking any particular notice.”
“I understand, sir.”
“Let us look as if we were walking round just out of curiosity, and do nothing to excite the attention of any sentinel who may have us under his eye.”
Fred led the way, and Samson followed, as he walked completely round the ruins of the old building, apparently indifferent, but taking in everything with the most intense eagerness. But, look as he would, he could see no trace of any opening in the skeleton of the fine old Hall. Every vestige of roof had gone, and in its fall parti-walls had been toppled over, and where they still stood it was in such a chaos of ruins that the eye soon grew confused.
As to finding the entrance to the passage, that was impossible. It was easy enough to trace the entrance hall, but the carven beams of the roof had entirely gone, and there was not the slightest trace visible of the grand staircase or the corridor which ran to right and left. Smouldering ashes, calcined stone, and here and there the projecting charred stump of some beam; but no sign of a passage running between walls, and at last Samson, who had edged up closely, whispered—
“Are you sure you are right, sir? I can’t see aught.”
“I am certain,” was the reply. “But let us go now. No one is likely to find the entrance here.”
“And no one is likely to get out of it here,” said Samson to himself, as they walked slowly away, to be hailed directly after by one of the officers.
“I thought you two had gone fishing?”