The flagstones at my feet were solid and firm, and the bricks on either side showed neither gap nor crack.

I pushed the candle further in and stepped cautiously over the crumbled embers into the hollow of the deep grate itself.
As I did so a blast from above extinguished the light, and at the same moment a sound of footsteps fell on my ear, not this time from the outer passage, but apparently from some passage on the other side of the wall against which I crouched.
I felt round wildly with my hands for the opening by which I had entered.

Instead of that I found what felt like a step in the angle of the wall, and above it another.

An instinct of self-preservation prompted me to clamber up here, and ensconce myself on a narrow ledge in the chimney, some six feet above the level of the ground.
Here I waited with beating heart as the footsteps came nearer.

I could judge by the sound that they belonged not, like the last I had heard, to a wandering woman, but to two men, advancing cautiously but with set purpose, and exchanging words in whispers.
Presently, to my amazement, a ray of light shot through the blackness of the recess below me, followed by a creaking noise as a part of the floor of the hearth swung slowly upwards, and revealed to my view a dimly-lit, rocky passage below, slanting downwards, and leading, as I could judge by the hollow sound that came through it, towards the shore of the lough.
I could now understand how it came that a house so closely barred and bolted was yet so easily frequented.