Chapter 11

CHAPTER III - THE ROOM OVER THE CHAPEL

From the battlements nothing further was observed. The sun
journeyed westward, and at last went down; but, to the eyes of all
these eager sentinels, no living thing appeared in the
neighbourhood of Tunstall House.

When the night was at length fairly come, Throgmorton was led to a
room overlooking an angle of the moat. Thence he was lowered with
every precaution; the ripple of his swimming was audible for a
brief period; then a black figure was observed to land by the
branches of a willow and crawl away among the grass. For some half
hour Sir Daniel and Hatch stood eagerly giving ear; but all
remained quiet. The messenger had got away in safety.

Sir Daniel's brow grew clearer. He turned to Hatch.

"Bennet," he said, "this John Amend-All is no more than a man, ye
see. He sleepeth. We will make a good end of him, go to!"

All the afternoon and evening, Dick had been ordered hither and
thither, one command following another, till he was bewildered with
the number and the hurry of commissions. All that time he had seen
no more of Sir Oliver, and nothing of Matcham; and yet both the
priest and the young lad ran continually in his mind. It was now
his chief purpose to escape from Tunstall Moat House as speedily as
might be; and yet, before he went, he desired a word with both of
these.

At length, with a lamp in one hand, he mounted to his new
apartment. It was large, low, and somewhat dark. The window
looked upon the moat, and although it was so high up, it was
heavily barred. The bed was luxurious, with one pillow of down and
one of lavender, and a red coverlet worked in a pattern of roses.
All about the walls were cupboards, locked and padlocked, and
concealed from view by hangings of dark-coloured arras. Dick made
the round, lifting the arras, sounding the panels, seeking vainly
to open the cupboards. He assured himself that the door was strong
and the bolt solid; then he set down his lamp upon a bracket, and
once more looked all around.

For what reason had he been given this chamber? It was larger and
finer than his own. Could it conceal a snare? Was there a secret
entrance? Was it, indeed, haunted? His blood ran a little chilly
in his veins.

Immediately over him the heavy foot of a sentry trod the leads.
Below him, he knew, was the arched roof of the chapel; and next to
the chapel was the hall. Certainly there was a secret passage in
the hall; the eye that had watched him from the arras gave him
proof of that. Was it not more than probable that the passage
extended to the chapel, and, if so, that it had an opening in his
room?

To sleep in such a place, he felt, would be foolhardy. He made his