"I will trust thee, young sir. I must needs do so, for without
human help I must surely die.

"Seest thou this bunch of grapes so cunningly carved here? This
middle grape of the cluster will turn round in the fingers that
know how to find and grasp it, and so turning and turning slowly,
unlooses a bolt within--here--and so the whole woodwork swings out
upon hinges and reveals the doorway. Where that doorway leads I
will show thee anon, if thou wouldst know the trick of the secret
chamber at Chad that all men have now forgotten. It may be that it
will some day shelter thee or thine, for thou hast enemies abroad,
even as I have."

Bertram was intensely interested as he examined and mastered the
simple yet clever contrivance of this masked door; but quickly
remembering the starved condition of his companion, he led him
cautiously into an adjoining room, where were a table and some
scant furniture, and gliding down the staircase and along dim
corridors just made visible by the reflected radiance of the moon,
he reached the buttery, and armed himself with a venison pasty, a
loaf of bread, and a bottle of wine. Hurrying back with these, he
soon had the satisfaction to see the stranger fall upon them with
the keen relish of a man who has fasted to the last limits of
endurance; and only after he had seen that the keen edge of his
hunger had been satisfied did he try to learn more of him and his
concerns.

"Now tell me, my good friend, who and what thou art," said the boy,
"and how comes it that thou seekest shelter here, and that thou
knowest more of Chad than we its owners do. That is the thing which