oom
stood long looking at them with the flame of the candle blowing
inward and held above his head--a mysterious man beyond Montaiglon's
comprehension. He stood behind him a pace or two, shivering in the
evening air.

"You'll be seeing little there, I'll warrant, Count, but a cold night
and inhospitable vacancy, hard hills and the robber haunting them. For
me, that prospect is my evening prayer. I cannot go to sleep without
it, for fear I wake in Paradise and find it's all by with Doom and the
native hills for me."

And by that he seemed to Montaiglon more explicable: it was the lover
he was; the sentimentalist, the poet, knowing the ancient secret of the
animate earth, taking his hills and valleys passionately to his heart.
The Frenchman bowed his sympathy and understanding.

"It's a wonder Mungo kept his word and went to bed," said the Baron,
recovering his ordinary manner, "for it would just suit his whim to bide
up and act sentry here, very well pleased at the chance your coming gave
him of play-acting the man of war."

He bolted the door again with its great bars, then gravely preceded his
guest to the foot of the turret stair, where he handed him the candle.

"You're in a dreary airt of the house," he said apologetically, "but I
hope you may find it not uncomfortable. Doom is more than two-thirds
but empty shell, and the bats have the old chapel above you. _Oidhche
mhath!_ Good night!" He turned upon his heel and was gone into the
farther end of the passage.

As Montaiglon went up to his room, the guttering candle flame, puffed
at by hidden and mischievous enemies from broken ports and gun-slits,
showed upon the landing lower than his own a long corridor he had not
observed upon his first ascent. With the candle held high above his head
he glanced into the passage, that seemed to have several doors on either
hand. In a castle so sparsely occupied the very knowledge of this
long and empty corridor in the neighbourhood of his sleeping apartment
conferred a sense of chill and mystery. He thought he could perceive the
odour of damp, decayed wood, crumbled lime, hanging rotten in stagnant
airs and covered with the dust of years. "_Dieu!_" he exclaimed
involuntarily, "this is no Cammercy." He longed for some relief from the
air of mystery and dread that hung about the place. A laugh would have
been a revelation, a strain of song a miracle of healing. And all at
once he reflected upon the Annapla as yet unseen.