The apartment was empty of human occupants, and otherwise presented a bare and uninviting aspect, the only furniture in it consisting of a table and two chairs. It was imperfectly lighted by a small window looking out upon the cloisters which surrounded the courtyard that the prisoners had crossed a quarter of an hour earlier, and a bell suspended near the ceiling and attached to a chain leading out through a slit in the wall seemed to indicate that it was the room in which the warder of the outer gates was accustomed to sit. But the man was certainly not then in the room, nor was there anything to indicate that he had recently been there. If therefore Dick's belief that he had seen the lay brother enter had been well-founded the man must have left again almost immediately, while the two Englishmen were being conducted to their cell by the now imprisoned jailer. True, he might have passed on to an inner room; for there was another door opposite to that by which Dick and Phil had entered. After a hurried glance round, the two friends, moved as it might have been by the same impulse, crossed to this door, and, quietly opening it, glanced into the adjoining apartment. A single glance round this room sufficed to show that the man whom they sought was not in it, for it also was empty, so far as human occupants were concerned. It was a room of very considerable size, and was apparently the refectory, for two rows of tables, each capable of seating about fifty persons, ran lengthwise down the hall, and were draped with coarse white cloths upon which were set out an array of platters, water pitchers, knives, and the rest of the paraphernalia used at meals. This room was very much loftier and better lighted than the one which the Englishmen had just left, there being four large windows in the outer wall, overlooking a large and beautifully kept garden in which several people were working, some of them attired in the garb of monks, while others wore the dress of lay brothers. There were two doors in this room, in addition to the one by which our friends had entered, one being at the far end of the room and communicating with the kitchen of the establishment, if the sounds and odours which emanated therefrom were to be trusted, while the other and much larger door occupied the centre of the inner wall and was obviously used by the inmates of the establishment at meal times. "Now, what can have become of the man?" demanded Phil in an angry whisper, as the pair glanced round the room and noted its deserted appearance. "Are you quite sure that you were not mistaken as to the door by which you saw him enter?"