"We mustn't stop," the Baronet said. "Hold up the light, Wilson," and the whole party again stumbled forward along the passage.
"Where does it lead to?" the constable asked, peering cautiously into the darkness before him.
"I wish I could tell you," Sir Hugh replied. "I have never seen the place before. It must be the nuns' corridor of ancient days. I always understood it had been bricked up. By the way, we must go carefully. If I'm right, there must be a deep chasm ahead—the Nuns' Shaft, and if—hullo, what's that?"
Distant a few paces in front was a human figure crouching low against the wall.
"There he is," several voices cried at once.
"Take care," said my uncle. "Remember, he is a madman!"
At this, the whole party came to a sudden halt.
"Yield in the King's name," shouted the constable. But whatever effect the King's name may have upon the sane it cannot be expected to exercise much influence upon a maniac. Rising to his feet, with a wild laugh that sounded unearthly in the echoing passage, the madman ran on into the darkness, with the pursuit hot behind him.
Suddenly he checked his headlong pace, and, turning swiftly, confronted his pursuers. The light held aloft by the constable fell full on his despairing face, and to their dying day those who saw Angelo Vasari at that moment will never forget the sight.
With a gesture in which rage, defiance and hopelessness were all mingled, he sprang into the air. For one moment he was visible, in the next he had vanished. No sound broke from him. In absolute silence, more terrible than any cry, he was swallowed by the blackness beneath him.