Tavannes followed; the two guards came last, carrying a second lanthorn.

At the head of the staircase, whence a bare passage ran, north and south, the procession turned right- handed, and, passing two doors, halted before the third and last, which faced them at the end of the passage.

The lieutenant unlocked it with a key which he took from a hook beside the doorpost.

Then, holding up his light, he invited his charge to enter.
The room was not small, but it was low in the roof, and prison-like, it had bare walls and smoke-marks on the ceiling.

The window, set in a deep recess, the floor of which rose a foot above that of the room, was unglazed; and through the gloomy orifice the night wind blew in, laden even on that August evening with the dank mist of the river flats.