“Here we are,” said he, letting the conversation drop, like a burden too heavy to be carried longer. In fact, his foot had just struck against the first step of a stairway. Preceding Valensolle, for whom he lighted the way, Morgan went up ten steps and reached the gate. Taking a key from his pocket, he opened it. They found themselves in the burial vault. On each side of the vault stood coffins on iron tripods: ducal crowns and escutcheons, blazoned azure, with the cross argent, indicated that these coffins belonged to the family of Savoy before it came to bear the royal crown. A flight of stairs at the further end of the cavern led to an upper floor. Valensolle cast a curious glance around him, and by the vacillating light of the torch, he recognized the funereal place he was in. “The devil!” said he, “we are just the reverse of the Spartans, it seems.” “Inasmuch as they were Republicans and we are royalists?” asked Morgan. “No; because they had skeletons at the end of their suppers, and we have ours at the beginning.” “Are you sure it was the Spartans who proved their philosophy in that way?” asked Morgan, closing the door. “They or others--what matter?” said Vallensolle. “Faith! My citation is made, and like the Abbé Vertot, who wouldn’t rewrite his siege, I’ll not change it.” “Well, another time you had better say the Egyptians.” “Well,” said Valensolle, with an indifference that was not without a certain sadness, “I’ll probably be a skeleton myself before I have another chance to display my erudition. But what the devil are you doing? Why did you put out the torch? You’re not going to make me eat and sleep here I hope?” Morgan had in fact extinguished the torch at the foot of the steps leading to the upper floor. “Give me your hand,” said the young man. Valensolle seized his friend’s band with an eagerness that showed how very slight a desire he had to make a longer stay in the gloomy vaults of the dukes of Savoy, no matter what honor there might be in such illustrious companionship. Morgan went up the steps. Then, by the tightening of his hand, Valensolle knew he was making an effort. Presently a stone was raised, and through the opening a trembling gleam of twilight met the eyes of the young men, and a fragrant aromatic odor came to comfort their sense of smell after the mephitic atmosphere of the vaults. “Ah!” cried Valensolle, “we are in a barn; I prefer that.” Morgan did not answer; he helped his companion to climb out of the vault, and then let the stone drop back in its place. Valensolle looked about him. He was in the midst of a vast building filled with hay, into which the light filtered through windows of such exquisite form that they certainly could not be those of a barn. “Why!” said Valensolle, “we are not in a barn!” “Climb up the hay and sit down near that window,” replied Morgan.