atedly not to take up my abode there.
"Pass the day there, if you like," said he, "but never stay the night."
I passed it off with a light laugh. The servants said that they would
work till dark and go away at night. I gave my ready assent. The house
had such a bad name that even thieves would not venture near it after
dark.

At first the solitude of the deserted palace weighed upon me like a
nightmare. I would stay out, and work hard as long as possible, then
return home at night jaded and tired, go to bed and fall asleep.

Before a week had passed, the place began to exert a weird fascination
upon me. It is difficult to describe or to induce people to believe;
but I felt as if the whole house was like a living organism slowly and
imperceptibly digesting me by the action of some stupefying gastric
juice.

Perhaps the process had begun as soon as I set my foot in the house, but
I distinctly remember the day on which I first was conscious of it.

It was the beginning of summer, and the market being dull I had no work
to do. A little before sunset I was sitting in an arm-chair near the
water's edge below the steps. The Susta had shrunk and sunk low; a broad
patch of sand on the other side glowed with the hues of evening; on
this side the pebbles at the bottom of the clear shallow waters were
glistening. There was not a breath of wind anywhere, and the still air
was laden with an oppressive scent from the spicy shrubs growing on the
hills close by.

As the sun sank behind the hill-tops a long dark curtain fell upon the
stage of day, and the intervening hills cut short the time in which
light and shade mingle at sunset. I thought of going out for a ride,
and was about to get up when I heard a footfall on the steps behind. I
looked back, but there was no one.

As I sat down again, thinking it to be an illusion, I heard many
footfalls, as if a large number of persons were rushing down the steps.
A strange thrill of delight, slightly tinged with fear, passed through
my frame, and though there was not a figure before my eyes, methought I
saw a bevy of joyous maidens coming down the steps to bathe in the Susta
in that summer evening. Not a sound was in the valley, in the river, or
in the palace, to break the silence, but I distinctly heard the maidens'
gay and mirthful laugh, like the gurgle of a spring gushing forth in a
hundred cascades, as they ran past me, in quick playful pursuit of
each other, towards the river, wit