as fast
as a door.

At this moment Raynal's voice was heard calling him.

"There is a light in that bedroom."

"It is not a bedroom, colonel; it is our sitting-room now. We shall find
them all there, or at least the young ladies; and perhaps the doctor.
The baroness goes to bed early. Meantime I can show you one of our
dramatis personae, and an important one too. She rules the roost."

He took him mysteriously and showed him Jacintha.

Moonlight by itself seems white, and candlelight by itself seems yellow;
but when the two come into close contrast at night, candle turns a
reddish flame, and moonlight a bluish gleam.

So Jacintha, with her shoes in this celestial sheen, and her face in
that demoniacal glare, was enough to knock the gazer's eye out.

"Make a good sentinel--this one," said Raynal--"an outlying picket for
instance, on rough ground, in front of the enemy's riflemen."

"Ha! ha! colonel! Let us see where this staircase leads. I have an idea
it will prove a short cut."

"Where to?"

"To the saloon, or somewhere, or else to some of Jacintha's haunts.
Serve her right for going to sleep at the mouth of her den."

"Forward then--no, halt! Suppose it leads to the bedrooms? Mind this
is a thundering place for ceremony. We shall get drummed out of the
barracks if we don't mind our etiquette."

At this they hesitated; and Edouard himself thought, on the whole, it
would be better to go and hammer at the front door.

Now while they hesitated, a soft delicious harmony of female voices
suddenly rose, and seemed to come and run round the walls. The men
looked at one another in astonishment; for the effect was magical. The
staircase being enclosed on all sides with stone walls and floored with
stone, they were like flies inside a violoncello; the voices rang above,
below, and on every side of the vibrating walls. In some epochs spirits
as hardy as Raynal's, and wits as quick as Riviere's, would have fled
then and there to the nearest public, and told over cups how they had
heard the dames of Beaurepaire, long since dead, holding their revel,
and the conscious old devil's nest of a chateau quivering to the ghostly
strains.

But this was an incredulous age. They listened, and listened, and
decided the sounds came from up-stairs.

"Let us mount, and surprise these singing witches," said Edouard.

"Surprise them! what for? It is not the enemy--for once. What is the
good of surprising our friends?"

Stormin