Jean was lowered gradually down the bottle-throat, till all at once the sides fell away, and he was swinging in space.[7] The effect of being suddenly plunged in absolute blackness of darkness is not so startling as some might suppose. The retina of the eye carries with it an impression of light; and as Jean was let down through void space of absolutely rayless gloom, it seemed to him as though a rosy halo attended him; he could, indeed, discern nothing--no object whatever--but he could not suppose that he did not. All at once his feet touched ground. Then he released his arms, and struck a light with steel and flint. Some time elapsed before the tinder kindled, and from the tinder he was able to ignite the candle. Jean's hand shook. He was nervous lest he should see his father dead or dying. It seemed inexplicable to him that he was not answered readily when he called. Finally, the yellow flame flickered. Then the lad raised the candle above his head and looked about him. He was in a dungeon some thirteen feet square, built of hewn stones in large blocks, laid together with the finest joints, that did not show mortar. The sides were perfectly smooth. The chamber was arched overhead; there was in it no door, no window, no hole of any sort save that in the midst of the vault overhead, through which he had descended. [7] The description of the interior of the _oubliette_ is in accordance with that into which the author was lowered at Castelnau le Bretenoux. The ruin of the castle at Domme is so complete that the _oubliettes_ there, if they existed, are buried. Against the wall, lying with his head raised, his eyes open, looking at the light, not at Jean, was his father, his legs extended on the cold floor, and about him were strewn the bones of dead men, skulls and skeletons, more or less disturbed by the blind groping of the last victim. Jean at once went to the old man. "Father! dear father!" he said. "Eh?" "It is I--Jean." "Eh?" "I have come to release you." "Eh?" The old man's senses seemed lost. Jean at once knelt, and drawing a phial from his breast, poured into Ogier's mouth a spirit distilled from the juniper berries that grow on the Causse. His father drew a deep inspiration. "It is a long night, and a bad dream," he said. "Where are the tansy and the butterfly?" "Father, no time is to be lost. Can you rise?" The old man scrambled to his feet. He was as one in a trance. Jean led him to the cords, and thrust his father's arms through the loops. "Mind and hold your hands down," he said. "Father, you will see the light of day! the light of day! Be quick! you will see it before it is gone." "The light--the sun?" asked Ogier, eagerly. "The sun is set, father; but you will see the evening sky and the stars." "The light! O my God! the light, do you say?"