ry hour, I
could show you my power; and when, after you had presumptuously enough
challenged me to enter the lists, I chose a particular time, and, as
you will perceive, a place that you may think rather awful, I only
wished to show a civility to him, who, on this occasion, is to be in
some sort your guest. One likes to receive guests in one's best room,
and at the most suitable hour.'

"It struck eleven, the major took up the torches, and desired us to
follow him.

"He strode so quickly along the high road that we had a difficulty in
following him, and when we had reached the toll-house, turned into a
footpath on the right, that led to a thick wood of firs. After we had
run for nearly an hour, the major stood still, and told us to keep
close behind him, as we might otherwise lose ourselves in the thicket
of the wood that we now had to enter. We went through the densest
bushes, so that one or the other of us was constantly caught by the
uniform or the sword, so as to extricate himself with difficulty, until
at last we came to an open space. The moonbeams were breaking through
the dark clouds, and I perceived the ruins of a large building, into
which the major strode. It grew darker and darker; the major desired
us to stand still, as he wished to conduct every one of us down singly.
He began with the captain, and my turn came next. The major clasped me
round, and I was more carried by him than I walked into the depth.
'Stop here,' whispered the major, 'stop here quietly till I have
fetched the lieutenant, then my work shall begin.'

"Amid the impenetrable darkness I heard the breathing of a person who
stood close by me. 'Is that you, captain?' I exclaimed. 'Certainly it
is,' replied the captain, 'have a care, cousin; this will all end in
foolish jugglery, but it is a cursed place to which the major has
brought us, and I wish we were sitting at a bowl of punch, for my limbs
are all trembling with cold, and, if you will have it so, with a
certain childish apprehension.'

"It was no better with me than with the captain. The boisterous autumn
wind whistled and howled through the walls, and a strange groaning and
whispering answered it from below. Scared night birds swept fluttering
by us, while a low whining noise seemed to be gliding away close to the
ground. Truly both the captain and myself might say of the horrors of
our situation the same thing that Cervantes says of Don Quixote, when
he passes the porte