Large pans, some of them cracked and more of them broken; empty boxes bound with iron, of the same sort as those I had seen the workmen bringing in at the front gate; old coal sacks; a packing-case full of coke; and a huge, cracked, mouldy blacksmith's bellows--these were the principal objects that I observed in the lumber-room.

The one door leading out of it was open, as I had expected it would be, in order to let the air through the back window into the house.

I took off my shoes, and stole into the passage.
My first impulse, the moment I looked along it, was to shut down my lantern-shade, and listen again.
Still I heard nothing; but at the far end of the passage I saw a bright light pouring through the half-opened door of one of the mysterious front rooms.
I crept softly toward it.

A decidedly chemical smell began to steal into my nostrils--and, listening again, I thought I heard above me, and in some distant room, a noise like the low growl of a large furnace, muffled in some peculiar manner.

Should I retrace my steps in that direction?
No--not till I had seen something of the room with the bright light, outside of which I was now standing.