At a certain door he halted, indicating that they were to sleep there. They entered; the host lit a candle with the one he carried, then lurched back the way he had come. In the chamber the two men glanced at each other. The only furnishings of the room were a couple of bunks, a chair or two and a heavy table. "Let us see if there be any way to make fast the door," said Kane. "I like not the looks of mine host." "There are racks on door and jamb for a bar," said Gaston, "but no bar." "We might break up the table and use its pieces for a bar," mused Kane. "_Mon Dieu_," said l'Armon, "you are timorous, _m'sieu_." Kane scowled. "I like not being murdered in my sleep," he answered gruffly. "My faith!" the Frenchman laughed. "We are chance met--until I overtook you on the forest road an hour before sunset, we had never seen each other." "I have seen you somewhere before," answered Kane, "though I can not now recall where. As for the other, I assume every man is an honest fellow until he shows me he is a rogue; moreover, I am a light sleeper and slumber with a pistol at hand." The Frenchman laughed again. "I was wondering how _m'sieu_ could bring himself to sleep in the room with a stranger! Ha! Ha! All right, _m'sieu_ Englishman, let us go forth and take a bar from one of the other rooms." Taking the candle with them, they went into the corridor. Utter silence reigned and the small candle twinkled redly and evilly in the thick darkness. "Mine host hath neither guests nor servants," muttered Solomon Kane. "A strange tavern! What is the name, now? These German words come not easily to me--the Cleft Skull? A bloody name, i'faith." They tried the rooms next to theirs, but no bar rewarded their search. At last they came to the last room at the end of the corridor. They entered. It was furnished like the rest, except that the door was provided with a small barred opening, and fastened from the outside with a heavy bolt, which was secured at one end to the door-jamb. They raised the bolt and looked in. "There should be an outer window, but there is not," muttered Kane. "Look!" The floor was stained darkly. The walls and the one bunk were hacked in places, great splinters having been torn away. "Men have died in here," said Kane, somberly. "Is yonder not a bar fixed in the wall?" "Aye, but 'tis made fast," said the Frenchman, tugging at it. "The----" A section of the wall swung back and Gaston gave a quick exclamation. A small, secret room was revealed, and the two men bent over the grisly thing that lay upon its floor. "The skeleton of a man!" said Gaston. "And behold, how his bony leg is shackled to the floor! He was imprisoned here and died." "Nay," said Kane, "the skull is cleft--methinks mine host had a grim reason for the name of his hellish tavern. This man, like us, was no doubt a wanderer who fell into the fiend's hands."