But even while calling in question his superior officer’s self-control, he did not show himself possessed of very wonderful coolness. For hearing a rush as of many feet upward from the lower quarters, Hilary made the best of his way to the smouldering bonfire, and seized with his left hand--for his right was useless--a chunk of some fine wood too hard to burn (perhaps of the African black-wood, or the bread-fruit tree, or brown cassia), and came back with it in a mighty fury, and tried to beat the door in. But the door was of ancient chestnut-wood, and at his best he could not have hurt it. So now, in his weakness, he knocked and knocked; and nobody even heard him. “This is enough to wear any one out,” he said to himself, in his poor condition--for the lower the state of a man is, the more he relapses upon his nature, and Hilary’s nature was to talk to himself--“if I cannot get in, like this, I must do something or other, and get in somehow.” This would have cost him little trouble in his usual strength and activity. For the tipsy rascals had left wide open a window within easy reach from the street to a man sound of limb and vigorous. But Lorraine, in his present condition, had no small pain and difficulty in making his way through the opening. This being done at last, he found himself in a dark passage floored with polished timber, upon which he slipped and fell. “What an evil omen!” he cried, lightly--little imagining how true his words would prove--“to fall upon entering a strange house, even though it be by the window. However, I am shaken more than hurt. Goodness knows I can’t afford to bleed again.” Fastening again his loosened bandage--for he had bound his arm now with a handkerchief--he listened and heard a great noise moving somewhere in the distance. Nothing can be less satisfactory than to hear a great noise, and hearken very steadfastly for its meaning, yet not learn what it can be about, or even where it comes from. Hilary listened, and the noise seemed now to come from one way, and then from another. For the old house was peopled with indolent echoes, lazily answering one another, from corner to corner of passages, like the clapping of hands at a banquet. Wherefore Lorraine, being puzzled, went onwards, as behoves a young Englishman. And herein instinct served him well--at least as the luck of the moment seemed--for it led him into the main hall, whence niches and arches seemed leading away anywhere and everywhere. Hilary here stopped short, and wondered. It was so different from an English house; and he could not tell whether he liked it or not. There was some light of wax, and some of oil, and some of spluttering torches stuck into anything that would hold them, throwing a fugitive gleam on the floor, where the polish of the marble answered it. In other places there were breadths of shadow, wavering, jumping, and flickering. “This is a queer sort of place,” said Hilary; “what is the proper thing for me to do?”