His brow clouded for a few moments, then again he examined the seal and wire with the utmost care. He stood motionless, looking at it for fully a minute, then turning to the local officer, said-- "I'm going downstairs a moment. Don't touch it till I return." We both sat upon an ottoman in the corridor for nearly a quarter of an hour, during which time we heard noises downstairs; until Boyd at last rejoined us with a look of satisfaction in his face, and bearing in his hands something which looked like a huge pair of rusty shears with wooden handles. "I thought I'd find it," he observed, wiping the perspiration from his brow. His hands and face were blackened as though he had been groping in a cellar. "This is the seal," and opening his other hand he displayed an old discoloured pewter teaspoon, adding, "And here's a bit of lead--or what's as good." I took the sealing machine from him and examined it carefully. It was red with dust, and had apparently been thrown aside and neglected for a long time. "Now," said Boyd to his assistant, "I've lit a fire downstairs in the kitchen, and by the time we've done it'll be sufficiently fierce to melt the lead." "Then you intend to break open the door?" I exclaimed. He smiled, and for answer took from his pocket a champagne-knife, cutting the wire with a sharp click, untwisting it from the knob, and placing it with its seal in his pocket. In breathless eagerness we watched him push back the bolt, and stood expectant; but when he tried the door he found it to be still locked. Again he went swiftly to work with his bunch of queer-looking keys, and at last he saw one of them gently turn, and he pushed wide open the door of the chamber of secrets. Next second the bright light of Boyd's bull's-eye flashed into the interior, and all three of us fell back with exclamations of surprise and horror. Our discovery was truly astounding. The horrible sight was most weird and terrifying. Upon the threshold I stood speechless, utterly unable to move, for the ghastly spectacle made my hair rise as my eyes became riveted upon the noisome interior of that long-closed chamber. Our nostrils were filled with a foetid, nauseating smell of decay which burst upon us as the door was opened, and at the shock of witnessing the repulsive sight within, the candle I had held dropped from my trembling fingers and was extinguished. Slowly, however, I recovered it, taking a light from the one held by my friend's assistant, and then entered the place.