And I think that he was right.
Now came a whiff of biting smoke down the well shaft, borne by some breath of wind that eddied into it.

The Danes had fired the place! "Father," I whispered, pulling the prior forward, for he had gone into the little cell to give thanks for this last deliverance.
He looked very grave as he saw the blue haze across the doorway, hiding the moss and a tiny fern that grew on the shaft walls over against us.
"This is what I feared, though I must needs make light of it," he said.
"It cannot harm us here," I answered.
"All round this court on three sides the buildings are of wood; sheds and storehouses they are and of no account, but if one falls across the well mouth--what then ?" "Then we are like to be stifled," said I; for even now the smoke grew thicker, even so far down as we were.

And when I looked out and up there was naught but smoke across the well mouth, and with that, sparks.
"Pent up and stifled both," said the quavering voice of the sacristan from behind us.

"How may we get out of this place till men come and raise the ruin that will cover us?
And who knows we are here but ourselves ?" "Forgive me for bringing you to this pass," said the prior gravely, after a little silence.
The smoke grew even denser, and we must needs cough, while the tears ran from my eyes, for the stinging oak smoke seemed trapped when once it was driven down the well.
"I have known men escape from worse than this," I said, thinking of Lodbrok, and turning over many wild plans in my mind.
"I had forgotten this danger of wooden walls," said the prior to himself, as it were.

"Doubtless when this well chamber was made it was without the inclosure." Now it seemed to me that this could not be borne much longer, and that soon the walls he dreaded would fall.