The officer hesitated.  For a moment he advanced a step toward her, with a menacing gesture.  But, heated as the passions of men were, no violence was done to women, and with a fierce exclamation he ordered his troopers to search the house.  For a quarter of an hour they ransacked it high and low, overturned every article of furniture, pulling down the arras, and tapping the walls with the hilts of their swords.

“Take these two ladies away,” he said to his lieutenant, “and ride with them at once to Storton.  They will have to answer for having harbored the prince.”

The ladies were immediately taken off, placed on pillions behind two troopers, and carried away to Storton.  In the meantime the search went on, and presently the hollow sound given by the slab in the wall was noticed.  The spring could not be discovered, but crowbars and hammers being brought, the slab of stone was presently shivered.  The discovery of the iron door behind it further heightened their suspicion that the place of concealment was found.  The door, after a prolonged resistance, was battered in.  But the Roundheads were filled with fury, on entering, to discover only a small, bare cell, with no signs of occupation whatever.  The search was now prolonged in other directions; but, becoming convinced that it was useless, and that the place of concealment was too cunningly devised to admit of discovery, the captain ordered the furniture to be piled together, and setting light to it and the arras in several places, withdrew his men from the house, saying that if a rat would not come out of his hole, he must be smoked in it.

The prince and Harry from their place of concealment had heard the sound of blows against the doors below.

“They have found the way we have gone,” the prince said, “but I think not that their scent is keen enough to trace us up here.  If they do so, we will sell our lives dearly, for I will not be taken prisoner, and sooner or later our troop will hear of the Roundheads’ attack, and will come to our rescue.”

They heard the fall of the iron door, and the exclamations and cries with which the Roundheads broke into the room below.  Then faintly they heard the sound of voices, and muffled knocks, as they tried the walls.  Then all was silent again.

“The hounds are thrown off the scent,” the prince said.  “It will need a clever huntsman to put them on it.  What will they do next, I wonder?”

Some time passed, and then Harry exclaimed: 

“I perceive a smell of something burning, your royal highness.”

“Peste! methinks I do also,” the prince said.  “I had not thought of that.  If these rascals have set fire to the place we shall be roasted alive here.”

A slight wreath of smoke was seen curling up through the crevice of the tightly-fitting stone.

“We will leap out, and die sword in hand,” the prince said; and seizing the ring, he and Harry pulled at it.  Ere they raised the stone an inch, a volume of dense smoke poured up, and they at once dropped it into its place again, feeling that their retreat was cut off.  The prince put his sword in its scabbard.