"Come," said Myles at last, brushing the dust from his jacket, "an we
tarry here longer we will have chance to see no other sights; the sun is
falling low."

An arched stair-way upon the opposite side of the room from which they
had entered wound upward through the wall, the stone steps being lighted
by narrow slits of windows cut through the massive masonry. Above the
room they had just left was another of the same shape and size, but with
an oak floor, sagging and rising into hollows and hills, where the joist
had rotted away beneath. It was bare and empty, and not even a rat
was to be seen. Above was another room; above that, another; all the
passages and stairways which connected the one story with the other
being built in the wall, which was, where solid, perhaps fifteen feet
thick.

From the third floor a straight flight of steps led upward to a closed
door, from the other side of which shone the dazzling brightness of
sunlight, and whence came a strange noise--a soft rustling, a melodious
murmur. The boys put their shoulders against the door, which was
fastened, and pushed with might and main--once, twice; suddenly the
lock gave way, and out they pitched headlong into a blaze of sunlight.
A deafening clapping and uproar sounded in their ears, and scores of
pigeons, suddenly disturbed, rose in stormy flight.

They sat up and looked around them in silent wonder. They were in a
bower of leafy green. It was the top story of the tower, the roof of
which had crumbled and toppled in, leaving it open to the sky, with only
here and there a slanting beam or two supporting a portion of the tiled
roof, affording shelter for the nests of the pigeons crowded closely
together. Over everything the ivy had grown in a mantling sheet--a