capital posture whether for parley or defence. So thinking, he drew
his sword and tried to set his back against the door. To his surprise
it yielded behind his weight; and though he turned in a moment,
continued to swing back on oiled and noiseless hinges until it stood
wide open on a black interior. When things fall out opportunely for
the person concerned, he is not apt to be critical about the how or
why, his own immediate personal convenience seeming a sufficient
reason for the strangest oddities and revolutions in our sublunary
things; and so Denis, without a moment's hesitation, stepped within
and partly closed the door behind him to conceal his place of refuge.
Nothing was further from his thoughts than to close it altogether; but
for some inexplicable reason--perhaps by a spring or a weight--the
ponderous mass of oak whipped itself out of his fingers and clanked
to, with a formidable rumble and a noise like the falling of an
automatic bar.

The round, at that very moment, debouched[4] upon the terrace and
proceeded to summon him with shouts and curses. He heard them
ferreting in the dark corners; the stock of a lance even rattled along
the outer surface of the door behind which he stood; but these
gentlemen were in too high a humor to be long delayed, and soon made
off down a corkscrew pathway which had escaped Denis' observation, and
passed out of sight and hearing along the battlements of the town.

Denis breathed again. He gave them a few minutes' grace for fear of
accidents, and then groped about for some means of opening the door
and slipping forth again. The inner surface was quite smooth, not a
handle, not a moulding, not a projection of any sort. He got his
finger nails round the edges and pulled, but the mass was immovable.
He shook it, it was as firm as a rock, Denis de Beaulieu frowned, and