"What! though I should break the most solemn oath I ever swore?" muttered the robber. "No, stern sir! let the Devil take his own, and Olé Ark's sinful soul too, if the worst come to the worst! I have sent many an accursed heretic and excommunicated man to hell, and truly also many an honest fellow to heaven; but if I am now myself about to go to the Devil, it shall be as a right-believing Christian; and none shall say of me I broke my sworn oath, even to the living Satan." "Tell me the way thou shouldst have gone, is it here?" continued Aagé, looking around the large murky stone chamber. "The way to my master's den?" muttered the robber with a grin--"Wouldst ferret _that_ out, comrade? Take care thou dost not burn thyself in it!" "It is here, then," said Aagé to himself, looking around him, with still greater attention--"And here is the key; is it not so?" So saying, he produced the old rusty key which had been found on the robber's person together with the private letter. "Right, comrade, the key to hell!" returned the raving murderer, with a horrid laugh. Aagé now examined the whole vault, but discovered no trace of any cellar or descent. The floor was paved with large flags. He stamped on several places, and at last perceived a hollow sound, and the clang of metal under the stone floor. He took the lantern from the iron hook in the arch of the roof, and placed it on the floor. On doing so he discovered a large loose stone, which might be raised, and his conjecture was confirmed. The loose stone concealed a fast-locked iron trap-door, which, however, seemed too small to admit of the descent of any person. He tried the key, and it fitted. He opened the trap-door; the raw damp air of the vault rose up to him from a pitch-dark abyss, into which a ladder led down to an uncertain depth. While this examination was carrying on the insane murderer lay on the corpse bench, and grinned with horrible contortions. Aagé stood thoughtfully by the opening, pondering over his daring enterprise. It now struck him, for the first time, that, if undisguised, he must undoubtedly be recognised and his plan frustrated. His eye fell on the blood-stained jerkin, which had been stript from off the robber's person, in order to bind him, "Well," he said, "we exchange garments; there, thou hast my mantle and hat; I take thy jerkin and cap." "Good exchange enough," muttered Olé Ark; "if my luck goes with my jerkin, he goeth down to fame and honour. Ha! loose my body, Satan, and let me follow him into the pit." It was not without repugnance that Aagé clad himself in the soiled, stained dress of the vagabond, which, however, answered his purpose, and rendered him almost incognisable. He then took the lamp in his hand, and prepared to descend through the narrow aperture in the floor; but the scorn and defiance of the bound robber now changed into a piteous lament.