"I cannot understand it," replied Edgar, whose face, in spite of his brave words of hope, had grown grey and pinched. "No such heat was here when last we-- But see!--what is that light that glinteth beneath the door? Give me the axe, Peter! Something is going on beyond that barrier that giveth me fears I never felt before." Swinging the axe with feverish impatience, he smote the lock with tremendous force. The door instantly flew open, and a glare of light and a wave of hot air burst in upon them, blinding and scorching them so fiercely that, with one impulse, they fled backwards a dozen paces into the shelter or the passage. "What is this--dreadful fate--thou hast brought us into, Edgar?" cried Beatrice in gasps, as Jeannette sank to the ground by her side in a deep swoon. "Are we, then, to be choked and scorched alive?" "Reproach me not, Beatrice," replied Edgar in a tremulous voice, almost unmanned by the terrible plight into which he had unwittingly brought the two maidens. "I told thee the hope of escape was faint, but I never dreamed that such a fearful end might be in store for us." "Forgive me, Edgar," cried Beatrice impulsively, placing her hand gently on the young esquires arm. "I was overhasty in my alarm. I am a warrior’s daughter, and I will not play the coward again." "’Tis nothing. Myself I shall not forgive," muttered Edgar. In his prostration he had sunk back against the wall, his arms resting on the haft of his great axe and his head bowed down upon them. For a few minutes he was silent with the silence of despair. Then he resolutely roused himself from his stupor. "Come," he said, "we are in no immediate danger here, except it be from stifling. Let us retreat back beneath the moat. It will be cooler there." Headed by Peter with the torch, the little party threaded its way in dumb despair back into the deeper recesses of the tunnel, Edgar bearing the limp form of the insensible Jeannette. On arriving at the spot where the great iron-bound chest half-blocked the passage, Peter halted and proposed that they should seat themselves. Jeannette was laid upon the top of the box and Beatrice took her seat upon it, while Edgar and Peter stood at her side, conversing in low tones upon the hopeless situation in which they found themselves. The spot at which they had halted was, as near as they could judge, beneath the castle moat, and the air was far cooler than at the end towards the fire. "At least they cannot reach us," said Edgar presently. "The fire which bars our escape equally bars their attack. If they have no desire to encounter us hand to hand beneath the ground, they will have to keep the fires burning night and day." "That will not be difficult with the woods so close at hand," replied Peter, shaking his head. "They will know that after a day or two we shall be weakened by hunger and thirst."