rack, a ring, or any of the thousand contrivances mentioned in the
chronicles of old manors as moving a stone, turning a panel, or opening
an entrance into unknown regions.

Alas, there was nothing! The wall was smooth and plastered. The pavement
sounded dull; not a stone was loose, and the staircase hid no spring.
One of us looked further. She declared that in the extreme corner under
the staircase the wall had a hollow sound; we struck it, and found it
true. "It's here!" we all exclaimed. "There's a walled-up passage in
there, but that passage leads to the awful dungeon. That is the way down
to the sepulchre holding the living victims." We glued our ears to the
wall, heard nothing; still the discoverer maintained that she could hear
confused groans and clanking chains. What was to be done?

"Why, it's quite plain," said Mary: "we must pull the wall down. All of
us together can surely make a hole in it."

Nothing seemed easier to us; and we all went to work,--some trying to
knock it down with their logs, others scraping it with their shovels and
tongs,--never thinking that by worrying those poor shaky walls, we
risked tumbling the building down on our heads. Fortunately we could not
do much harm, because the noise made by the logs would have attracted
some one.

We had to be satisfied with pushing and scratching. Yet we had managed
to make quite a noticeable hole in the plaster, lime, and stones, when
the bell rang for prayers. We had just time to repeat our perilous
escapade, [Footnote: Escapade: prank.] put out our lights, separate, and
grope our way back to the schoolrooms. We put off the continuation of
the enterprise till the next day, and appointed the same place of