At the far end of the passage we found a stair down which we passed. At
its foot was an iron-bound door that the monk unlocked and locked
again upon the further side. Then came another passage hollowed in the
thickness of the wall, and a second door, and we were in the place of
death.
It was a vault low and damp, and the waters of the river washed its
outer wall, for I could hear their murmuring in the silence. Perhaps the
place may have measured ten paces in length by eight broad. For the rest
its roof was supported by massive columns, and on one side there was a
second door that led to a prison cell. At the further end of this gloomy
den, that was dimly lighted by torches and lamps, two men with hooded
heads, and draped in coarse black gowns, were at work, silently mixing
lime that sent up a hot steam upon the stagnant air. By their sides were
squares of dressed stone ranged neatly against the end of the vault, and
before them was a niche cut in the thickness of the wall itself, shaped
like a large coffin set upon its smaller end. In front of this niche was
placed a massive chair of chestnut wood. I noticed also that two other
such coffin-shaped niches had been cut in this same wall, and filled
in with similar blocks of whitish stone. On the face of each was a date
graved in deep letters. One had been sealed up some thirty years before,
and one hard upon a hundred.
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