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318 hands that lost all power; a vacuous laugh sounded a moment in the Umbrian's throat; bis eyes stared senselessly at the slender silver cimeter of the young moon that shone through the slit of the casement, then their lids closed, his head fell back, he lay like a log of wood on the pallet—unconscious, sightless, dead drunk. Erceldoune stooped over him, and forced his eyelids up; by the look of the eyeballs beneath he saw that this was no feint, but the deep-drugged sleep of intoxication that would be unbroken for a score of hours, whose stupor made the man it had enchained powerless as a stone, brainless as a hog, deaf to all sound, insensible of all existence;—he wanted no more.

With his knife he slashed noiselessly the band of the great keys that swung at the monk's girdle, and fastened them on his own, so muffled that they would make no sound as he moved. He looked at his pistols, and put them back in his sash ready sprung; they were double-barrelled revolvers, that carried sure death in their tabes. Then he laid his hand on the hound's collar, led him without, closed the door, and drew its bolts, locking in the Umbrian.

The dormitory was quite dark; not even the