"A ladder inside," he cried, joyously, as he felt rods of iron going down as far as he could reach. Instantly he lowered himself into the chimney and commenced the descent.
Feeling with his feet he found the rods, two feet apart, and down he went into the gloom.
One thing was certain, the chimney was not used as a smoke-conductor, for there was no soot in it. Down, down he went into the darkness, only a shadowy light showing the opening in the top of the chimney.
He had counted twenty rods, and so knew that he must have descended some forty feet.
Then his feet touched bottom, and turning, he saw the glimmer of a light through a crack.
Stooping, he gazed through the crack and looked out into a room dimly lighted, the gas being turned down low.
He saw that a fire-board hid the open chimney in which he stood, and moving it out he beheld the interior of the room distinctly.
There were two windows, one on either side of the fire-place, and he heard the wind rattling the sashes furiously, and the rain pattering viciously against the panes of glass.
There was a stove before him, but it was evidently there for show, as the smoke-stack entered the chimney, yet no soot was in it, which proved that a fire could not have been lighted in it.
A table with books on it, some pictures on the walls, a clothes-press, and over on one side of a door was a bed, while horrors! there was a man in it!