nothing except the creaking rattle of the locks, which
occasioned some difficulty in opening, and the ghost-like echo of their
own footsteps, they began one and all to be utterly astounded. Nowhere
was there the least trace of damage. The old house-steward was
impressed by an ominous feeling of apprehension. He went up into the
great Knight's Hall, which had a small cabinet adjoining where Freiherr
Roderick von R---- used to sleep when engaged in making his
astronomical observations. Between the door of this cabinet and
that of a second was a postern, leading through a narrow passage
immediately into the astronomical tower. But directly Daniel (that was
the house-steward's name) opened this postern, the storm, blustering
and howling terrifically, drove a heap of rubbish and broken pieces of
stones all over him, which made him recoil in terror; and, dropping
the candles, which went out with a hiss on the floor, he screamed, "O
God! O God! The Baron! he's miserably dashed to pieces!" At the same
moment he heard sounds of lamentation proceeding from the Freiherr's
sleeping-cabinet, and on entering it he saw the servants gathered
around their master's corpse. They had found him fully dressed and more
magnificently than on any previous occasion, and with a calm earnest
look upon his unchanged countenance, sitting in his large and richly
decorated arm-chair as though resting after severe study. But his rest
was the rest of death. When day dawned it was seen that the crowning
turret of the tower had fallen in. The huge square stones had broken
through the ceiling and floor of the observatory-room, and then,
carrying down in front of them a powerful beam that ran across the
tower, they had dashed in with redoubled impetus the lower vaulted
roof, and dragged down a portion of the castle walls and of the narrow
connecting-passage. Not a single step could be taken beyond the postern
threshold without risk of falling at least eighty feet into a deep
chasm.

The old Freiherr had foreseen the very hour of his death, and had sent
intelligence of it to his sons. Hence it happened that the very next
day saw the arrival of Wolfgang, Freiherr von R----, eldest son of the
deceased, and now lord of the entail. Relying confidently upon the
probable truth of the old man's foreboding, he had left Vienna, which
city he chanced to have reached in his travels, immediately he received
the ominous letter, and hastened to R--sitten as fast as he cou