"Now, Tom Rain, look alive, old fellow!" he murmured in self-encouraging apostrophe; and, with a resolute step, he hastened rapidly down the spiral staircase, amidst a darkness so intense that it was all but _felt_! CHAPTER XXXII. RAINFORD IN THE SUBTERRANEAN. Tom Rain reached the bottom of the stairs in perfect safety; and, as he had carefully noted the geography of the subterranean when he traversed it an hour previously with Old Death, he experienced but little difficulty in threading his path along it, even amidst the black darkness through which he literally seemed to be pushing his way. In a few minutes his progress was stopped by a wall, which his extended arms encountered; and he now knew that he had reached the extremity communicating with the house in Turnmill Street. Having succeeded in grasping the wire which, passing through the top of the vault, was connected with the mechanism of the clock overhead, he pulled it vigorously. But the machinery moved not! Then, for the first time during this eventful night, the highwayman became appalled at the dangers on which he had entered. Again he tugged at the wire; it snapped short close by the roof, and the long piece thus broken off, fell at his feet. "Damnation!" cried Rainford; and he stamped impatiently on the cold, damp stones. Suddenly it struck him that there might be one wire to move the clock over the opening at the head of the iron ladder, and another wire to move it away from that opening. He accordingly began to feel with his hands for this second wire the existence of which was suggested by his imagination; but at the end of a minute he was compelled to admit to himself that it did indeed exist only in imagination. No such second wire was to be found! He then hastily ascended the ladder, and endeavoured to hurl the clock from off the opening which it covered: but the huge machine was as solidly fixed there as if it had formed a portion of the vaulted roof itself. Escape seemed to grow every moment more hopeless; and now came the appalling thought that Old Death and the Doctor would soon have had sufficient time to repair from the house in Red Lion Street to that in Turnmill Street, and thus secure against him the avenue covered by the clock—even if it were not sufficiently secure already! What was he to do? Again and again he tried to force away the heavy clock: but there it stood, immoveable—and when he paused to reflect, its steady, monotonous ticking fell ominously upon his ears. At length it struck him that he would retrace his way to the other extremity—force up the trap-door leading to Old Death's bed-chamber—and, with a pistol in each hand, dare every thing. But what if that trap-door were secured on the other side? No:—he remembered to have observed that there was not a bolt nor a bar to break the level of its upper surface as it fitted in flush with the floor.