while. As I skirted the edge of the copse, I found that a low wall
encircled it, and following this I presently found an opening. Here
the cypresses formed an alley leading up to a square mass of some kind
of building. Just as I caught sight of this, however, the drifting
clouds obscured the moon, and I passed up the path in darkness. The
wind must have grown colder, for I felt myself shiver as I walked; but
there was hope of shelter, and I groped my way blindly on.

I stopped, for there was a sudden stillness. The storm had passed;
and, perhaps in sympathy with nature's silence, my heart seemed to
cease to beat. But this was only momentarily; for suddenly the
moonlight broke through the clouds, showing me that I was in a
graveyard, and that the square object before me was a great massive
tomb of marble, as white as the snow that lay on and all around it.
With the moonlight there came a fierce sigh of the storm, which
appeared to resume its course with a long, low howl, as of many dogs
or wolves. I was awed and shocked, and felt the cold perceptibly grow
upon me till it seemed to grip me by the heart. Then while the flood
of moonlight still fell on the marble tomb, the storm gave further
evidence of renewing, as though it was returning on its track.
Impelled by some sort of fascination, I approached the sepulchre to
see what it was, and why such a thing stood alone in such a place. I
walked around it, and read, over the Doric door, in German:

COUNTESS DOLINGEN OF GRATZ
IN STYRIA
SOUGHT AND FOUND DEATH
1801

On the top of the tomb, seemingly driven through the solid marble--for
the structure was composed of a few vast blocks of stone--was a great
iron spike or stake. On going to the back I saw, graven in great
Russian letters:

'The dead travel fast.'

There was something so weird and uncanny about the whole thing that it
gave me a turn and made me feel quite faint. I began to wish, for the
first time, that I had taken Johann's advice. Here a thought struck
me, which came under almost mysterious circumstances and with a
terrible shock. This was Walpurgis Night!

Walpurgis Night, when, according to the belief of millions of people,
the devil was abroad--when the graves were opened and the dead came
forth and walked. When all evil things of earth and air and water held
revel. This very place the driver had specially shunned