Indeed, they were just about to depart, when a sound resembling a deep groan seemed to arise from the cellars which they had not visited.

Hearing this, they immediately rushed down, and made an extraordinary discovery.
To explain this, however, we must go back to the time when they first passed the house.

We then mentioned that there was a person in the turret watching their movements.

As they disappeared in the direction of Ludgate, this individual quitted his post of observation, and, descending the spiral staircase, threaded a long passage in the darkness, like one familiar with the place, until he arrived at a particular chamber, which he entered; and, without pausing, proceeded to a little cabinet beyond it.

The moonlight streaming through a grated window, showed that this cabinet had been completely dismantled; stones had been removed from the walls; and several of the boards composing the floor, had been torn up and never replaced.