To make assurance doubly sure, however, they agreed to remain where they were for another half-hour; but when at length they judged that period to have elapsed they crept very cautiously out of the place of concealment which had served them so well, and made their way to the choir stalls, upon the soft cushions of which they rested their weary limbs for a short time while their eyes were growing accustomed to the gloom of the place. Then, having agreed that a certain small door, immediately opposite that by which they had found their way into the church, must be the one giving access to the vestry, they stole silently across the pavement, and Phil, having first satisfied himself that the room, or whatever it was that lay beyond, was in darkness, found the handle and proceeded to turn it as cautiously as though he believed the place on the other side to be full of people. The door proved to be unlocked; and a minute later the fugitives found themselves, as they had expected, in the vestry of the church. The room was a small one, but it was lighted by a fairly large window, and as the night happened to be brilliantly fine and starlit, the gloom here was not nearly so intense as it had been in the interior of the church, consequently they were able to distinguish without much difficulty that there were indeed, as Fray Jose had said, a number of garments of some sort hanging from pegs on one of the walls. Why these garments should be kept there the fugitives never troubled themselves to conjecture, the fact that they were there was sufficient for them; and they lost no time in appropriating and donning two of them. They were long black garments reaching from shoulder to ankle, with large hoods which might be drawn up over the head, almost entirely concealing the features when the wearer was out of doors, and were confined round the waist by a girdle of knotted rope. Attired in these, the pair felt that they might safely brave any but the very closest scrutiny, and they therefore had no scruples about sallying forth into the open forthwith. The window of the vestry overlooked a portion of the extensive garden, a glimpse of which they had gained through the great west door of the church earlier in the day, and, peering out through it, the two friends saw that there was a thick shrubbery at no great distance that looked as though it might afford them good cover from which to reconnoitre the ground prior to their attempt to gain the street beyond, and they at once decided to make for it in the first instance. Another moment and they were at the outer door, which proved to be locked. But the key was, luckily, in the lock, and on the inner side of the door, that slight difficulty was therefore soon got over; and a minute later the pair drew a great breath of relief as they found themselves once more in the open air--and free. CHAPTER SEVENTEEN. HOW THEY ESCAPED FROM THE INQUISITION.