"It is sweeping on apace," he said; "why did I not come earlier?"
Even as he spoke he plunged among the recesses of the ruins, and searching about for the old stone which covered the entrance to the dungeon, he was surprised to find it rolled from its place, and the aperture open.
"What is the meaning of this?" he said; "how negligent of Sir Francis Varney; or perhaps, after all, he was only jesting with me, and let the prisoner go. If that should be the case, I am foiled indeed; but surely he could not be so full of indiscretion."
Again came a dazzling flash of lightning, which now, surrounded by the ruins as he was, made him shrink back and cover his eyes for a moment; and then followed a peal of thunder with not half the duration of time between it and the flash which had characterized the previous electric phenomenon.
"The storm approaches fast," said Marchdale; "I must get my work done quickly, if indeed my victim be here, which I begin seriously to doubt."
He descended the intricate winding passage to the vault below, which served the purpose of a dungeon, and when he got very nearly into the depth of its recesses, he called aloud, saying,—
"Ho! what ho! is there any one here?"—"Yes," said Charles Holland, who fancied it might be his former visitor returned. "Have you come to repent of your purpose?"
"Ah!" said Marchdale to himself, "Sir Francis, after all, has told me the truth—the prisoner is still here."
The light from without was not near sufficient to send the least ray into the depths of that dungeon; so that Marchdale, when he entered the place, could see nothing but an absolute blackness.
It was not so, however, with Charles Holland, whose eyes had been now so long accustomed to the place that he could see in it as if a dim twilight irradiated it, and he at once, in his visitor, saw his worst foe, and not the man who had comparatively set him free.