It lay directly in my way, and had been worked that day, as I saw by the tools and barrows that were lying about.
Coming up again to the marsh level out of this excavation,--for the rude path lay through it,--I saw a light in the old sluice-house.

I quickened my pace, and knocked at the door with my hand.

Waiting for some reply, I looked about me, noticing how the sluice was abandoned and broken, and how the house--of wood with a tiled roof--would not be proof against the weather much longer, if it were so even now, and how the mud and ooze were coated with lime, and how the choking vapor of the kiln crept in a ghostly way towards me.

Still there was no answer, and I knocked again.
No answer still, and I tried the latch.
It rose under my hand, and the door yielded.

Looking in, I saw a lighted candle on a table, a bench, and a mattress on a truckle bedstead.