I shall go no further." Summoning up all his resolution, Leonard pushed open the door.

A frightful scene met his gaze.

At one side of a deep, low-roofed vault, the architecture of which was of great antiquity, and showed that it had been a place of burial, was stretched a miserable pallet, and upon it, covered by a single blanket, lay a wretch, whose groans and struggles proclaimed the anguish he endured.

A lamp was burning on the floor, and threw a sickly light upon the agonized countenance of the sufferer.

He was a middle-aged man, with features naturally harsh, but which now, contracted by pain, had assumed a revolting expression.