The bottom was reached in safety after the usual doleful crunching

and creaking of the timber, and Paul sat down on the bottom step,

with his candle, to rest and quiet himself, before proceeding with

his work upon the door. A dead stillness reigned all about him,

broken only by the occasional resettling of the steps above his head,

but which, to his excited brain, was like the report of a pistol;

still even this ceased in a few minutes, and the silence was

undisturbed. He now made a careful examination of the door. It was

very heavy, and solid. Holding his candle close against the crack, he

could see, to his surprise, that it was bolted upon the inside.

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Placing his ear close against the keyhole, he listened, but it was

silent as a tomb within; and how the door became fastened upon the

inside was inexplicable, unless indeed there was another outlet,

which from his examination of the building had seemed improbable.

Then, taking out his knife, he stuck it into the wood in various

directions to ascertain the condition of its preservation. The door

itself was in an excellent state; but in examining the lintel, the

blade of his knife suddenly sank into the rotten wood up to the

handle. Here, then, was the place to begin operations, and

fortunately it was on the side from which the door opened. Henley had

soon dug away a great segment of decayed wood, exposing the bolt

clearly to view. Then taking the hinge which he had brought with him,

and slipping the small end between the bolt and the frame of the

door, he used it as a lever to pry against the bolt within. The iron

was so old and rusty, and his purchase so poor, that he only

succeeded in making a rasping sound where the two metals scraped

against each other, and so stopped, discouraged. Presently he

bethought him of his handkerchief, which he wrapped carefully around

the end of the hinge, and thus not only gained a better purchase,

increasing his leverage, but was able to operate without the

slightest sound. It was a long time before the bolt moved, but to his

intense gratification it did move at last, and Henley took a fresh

grip upon his hinge. Backward and forward he worked his lever, and

with each turn the old bolt slipped back a little. At last he could

see the end of it, and then it was clear of the frame entirely. He

had expected no difficulty in opening the door when the hinge was

once slipped, but to his surprise it was still immovable. He pulled

and tugged and pushed, but it would not budge; then suddenly, just as

he was about to give up, it came tumbling down upon him, so that he

was barely able to save it from falling against the stairs with a

terrible crash, but fortunately caught it upon his shoulder, and

lowered it to the floor without a sound. Imagine his surprise in

going to what he now believed to be the open portal, to find that the

doorway had been bricked up from within, and that the door itself had

simply been the back of a solid wall. Naturally, he was disappointed

at finding himself no nearer the inner chamber than before. A careful

examination of the masonry showed that the work of bricking up the

entrance had undoubtedly been done from the other side, and after the

door had been closed and bolted. This was evidenced from the fact

that there was no mortar next the door, against the smooth inner

surface of which the bricks had been closely laid. Henley worked his

hinge between some of the looser joints, and found, just as he

expected, that the mortar had been laid from within. By degrees he

managed to wedge one of the bricks out of its place, and then pulled

it bodily from the wall. The inner surface was plastered over. He

tried another, which he got out more easily, and it told the same

tale. Then he went to work in earnest, and had soon dug a hole large

enough to admit his body. Leaning over into the aperture, with his

candle at arm's length, the place looked dark and empty, with faint

masses of lighter shadow. Then, with a certain indescribable awe,

Henley commenced crawling through the breach. Stepping upon an

earthern floor, he found himself in a vault-like chamber--damp,

mouldy, and foul of atmosphere. He glanced hurriedly about, and then

turned to examine the wall through which he had come. Just as he had

surmised, the bricks had been laid from the inner side, and plastered

over within. The person who had done the work must have had some

other means of escape. This set him to wondering where the other

entrance could be, and to a careful search around the wall; but there

was no door, no window, nor opening of any kind. How had the work

been done? While he was wondering, he stumbled over something in the

floor, and, recovering, threw back his head, holding his candle high

above it. He was startled by the sight of what appeared to be four

shadowy human faces, looking directly at him from above.

Instinctively he sought his revolver, but before drawing it perceived

that what he had taken for living people were simply four portraits,

of the most remarkable character he had ever beheld. Paul stared in

bewilderment at the sight before him. The pictures were so old, their

canvases so rotten and mildewed and stained with the accumulated

fungi of time and darkness that it was only by degrees that the

intention of the artist became manifest. In the hall and other

apartments of the old house, Henley thought he had seen the most

original and inexplicable pictures ever painted; but here, buried

forever from the sight of human eyes, were the most dreadful

countenances ever transcribed from life or the imagination of man.

Torture was clearly depicted upon each face; but not torture alone,

for horror, fright, and mental agony were strangely blended in each.

Not a face that looked down upon him from those antiquated frames but

bore that agonized, heart-broken, terrified expression. Paul was

paralyzed; a kind of mesmeric spell held him to the spot, so that he

could not remove his eyes from the uncanny scene before him. Then a

wild desire to be rid of the place forever seized him, and he stepped

backward. At the same minute he observed for the first time what

looked like some faded letters painted upon the wall directly beneath

the four mysterious portraits. Examining these with his candle, he

saw that they formed the words: "The last of the Guirs."




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