But there was one drawback—it was many feet above his head, and impossible of access without scaffold or ladder.
“And I’m not a fly, to hold on with my head downwards,” he said, half aloud.
He slowly lowered himself from the window-sill, and had another good look at the walls, tapping them here and there where they had been plastered; but though they sounded hollow, they seemed for the most part to be exceedingly thick, and offered no temptation for an assault.
He stood there musing, with the place of his confinement gradually growing more gloomy, and the glow in the sky reminding him of how glorious the sea would look upon such an evening.
There were a few strands of straw lying about, and he proceeded to kick them together in an idle fashion, his thoughts being far away at the time, when a sudden thought came to him like a flash.
The place was paved with slabs of stone, and it had been the chapel of the old mansion; perhaps there were vaults underneath, or maybe cellars.
The more he thought, the more likely this seemed. The old builders in that part of England believed in providing cool stores for wine and beer. In many places the dairy was underground, and why might there not be some place below here from which he could make his escape?
He stamped with his foot and listened.
Hollow, without a doubt.
He tried in another part, and another; and no matter where, the sound was such as would arise from a place beneath whose floor there was some great vault.