To this appellation we gave the most profound of bows, as much like the obeisances of a “gent” of any of the seven drapers’ establishments as we could assume. “Now, gents!” said the guide, “elevate the lids of your desiring eyes, and follow me.” We did so, till we came to a low portal gate, hedged round with ruins—dark, damp, and nauseous. “Stand here, gents,” said the guide, with a fierce aspect and a menacing tone; “stand here and contemplate, while I fetches the key.” After keeping us waiting for a short time, he returned, holding in his hand a gigantic key, which, having brandished with a mysterious air for some seconds, he put into the lock—the old door grated on its hinges, and at last stood open. He then looked at us sternly, and with the accents of Hamlet’s Ghost, said in a hollow voice, “Follow me!” Keet pulled out his “cheese-toaster,” and having deliberately sharpened it on the stone door-posts, and brandished it as “Ferocio” did the key, he gave me an expressive leer, and we followed. When we got into the door-way, we perceived the passage to be very dark, but we followed—took a turning to the right and then to the left, but all was dark as “Erebus,” and we began to feel comical. Keet called out to the guide, “I say, old fellow, I hope you are not going too far in this darkness visible.” “Nouagh!” said the guide, with a grunt that echoed through the place, “I av’ a flare-up in my pack!” With that he turned round, and rubbing a lucifer on the wall, and pulling a flambeau from his pocket, lighted it, and we proceeded. We first came to another door, little and sturdy, and grim;—this he kicked open with his foot. We then descended some stone steps; we then went up a few steps, then down again, then round a corner, and then through a niche, till having passed a third door-way without a door, we came to a large vaulted room, lighted by heavy-barred windows from above. “This,” said the guide, “is the place in which the women were confined in time of war, lest they should unman the soldiers by their frightments. Here they were all shut up like ‘cats in a barn,’ and, it is said, that sometimes they fought to desperation. These here marks on the wall are said to be occasioned by their mutual recriminations, and the _lex talions_, as von gent called Alberto Smytheti say.”