t intervals like a
circumambulating column of infantry. Doubtless such a column has passed
this way in its time, but the only columns which enter in these latter
days are the columns of sheep and oxen that are sometimes seen here now;
while the only semblance of heroic voices heard are the utterances of
such, and of the many winds which make their passage through the ravines.

The expected lightning radiates round, and a rumbling as from its
subterranean vaults--if there are any--fills the castle. The lightning
repeats itself, and, coming after the aforesaid thoughts of martial men,
it bears a fanciful resemblance to swords moving in combat. It has the
very brassy hue of the ancient weapons that here were used. The so
sudden entry upon the scene of this metallic flame is as the entry of a
presiding exhibitor who unrolls the maps, uncurtains the pictures,
unlocks the cabinets, and effects a transformation by merely exposing the
materials of his science, unintelligibly cloaked till then. The abrupt
configuration of the bluffs and mounds is now for the first time clearly
revealed--mounds whereon, doubtless, spears and shields have frequently
lain while their owners loosened their sandals and yawned and stretched
their arms in the sun. For the first time, too, a glimpse is obtainable
of the true entrance used by its occupants of old, some way ahead.

There, where all passage has seemed to be inviolably barred by an almost
vertical facade, the ramparts are found to overlap each other like
loosely clasped fingers, between which a zigzag path may be followed--a
cunning construction that puzzles the uninformed eye. But its cunning,
even where not obscured by dilapidation, is now wasted on the solitary
forms of a few wild badgers, rabbits, and hares. Men must have often
gone out by those gates in the morning to battle with the Roman legions
under Vespasian; some to return no more, others to come back at evening,
bringing with them the noise of their heroic deeds. But not a page, not
a stone, has preserved their fame.

* * * * *

Acoustic perceptions multiply to-night. We can almost hear the stream of
years that have borne those deeds away from us. Strange articulations
seem to float on the air from that point, the gateway, where the
animation in past times must frequently have concentrated itself at hours
of coming and going, and general excitement. There arises an
ineradicable fancy that they are human voices; if