And, as if to encourage me, the candle stood where I had found it once before on the little ledge, and beside it, to my astonishment, a small crust of bread.

It must have stood there a week, and was both stale and mouldy.

But to my famishing taste it was a repast for a king, and put a little new courage into me.
It surprised me to find the great apartment once again crowded with arms, stacked all along the sides and laid in heaps on the centre of the floor.

What perplexed me was not so much the arms themselves as the marvel how those that brought them entered and left the house.
But just now I had no time for such speculations.

I was strung up to a certain duty, and that I must perform, and leave speculation for later.
My mother's letter, if it meant anything, meant that I was to seek for something below or behind the great hearth; and as I peered carefully round it with my candle I could not help recalling the ghost which Tim and I had both heard, years ago, advance to this very spot and there halt.
Save the deep recess of the fireplace itself, there was no sign above or below of any hiding-place.