In the pause of perplexity that followed, an eerie and sinister
feeling crept over Turnbull's stubborn soul in spite of himself.
The notion of the doorless room chilled him with that sense of
half-witted curiosity which one has when something horrible is
half understood.

"James Turnbull," said MacIan, in a low and shaken voice, "these
people hate us more than Nero hated Christians, and fear us more
than any man feared Nero. They have filled England with frenzy
and galloping in order to capture us and wipe us out--in order to
kill us. And they have killed us, for you and I have only made a
hole in our coffins. But though this hatred that they felt for us
is bigger than they felt for Bonaparte, and more plain and
practical than they would feel for Jack the Ripper, yet it is not
we whom the people of this place hate most."

A cold and quivering impatience continued to crawl up Turnbull's
spine; he had never felt so near to superstition and
supernaturalism, and it was not a pretty sort of superstition
either.

"There is another man more fearful and hateful," went on MacIan,
in his low monotone voice, "and they have buried him even deeper.
God knows how they did it, for he was let in by neither door nor
window, nor lowered through any opening above. I expect these
iron handles that we both hate have been part of some damned
machinery for walling him up. He is there. I have looked through
the hole at him; but I cannot stand looking at him long, because
his face is turned away from me and he does not move."