What
moon there was revealed the quaint architecture of that stately
edifice and glittered upon the mullioned windows. But within nothing
stirred; no yellow glimmer came to clash with the white purity of
the moonlight; no sound of man or beast broke the stillness of the
night, for all that the hour was early. The air of the place was
as that of some gigantic sepulchre. A little daunted by this
all-enveloping stillness, I skirted the terraces and approached
the house on the eastern side. Here I found an old-world drawbridge
--now naturally in disuse - spanning a ditch fed from the main
river for the erstwhile purposes of a moat. I crossed the bridge,
and entered an imposing courtyard. Within this quadrangle the same
silence dwelt, and there was the same obscurity in the windows that
overlooked it. I paused, at a loss how to proceed, and I leaned
against a buttress of the portcullis, what time I considered.
I was weak from fasting, worn with hard riding, and faint from the
wound in my shoulder, which had been the cause at least of my
losing some blood. In addition to all this, I was shivering with
the cold of my wet garments, and generally I must have looked as
little like that Bardelys they called the Magnificent as you might
well conceive. How, then, if I were to knock, should I prevail in
persuading these people - whoever they might be - of my identity?
Infinitely more had I the air of some fugitive rebel, and it was
more than probable that I should be kept in durance to be handed
over to my friends the dragoons, if later they came to ride that
way.
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