o the door. Though they say he was a
courageous old sinner, his heart failed him, for such sounds had not
visited the old house within the memory of man in the day time, much
less in the dead of night; and, instead of going to the door, he hurried
away to the chamber where old Le Prun was cowering, screwed up in the
middle of a great old fauteuil, and more frightened at the tempest than
he would have cared to confess. So he told him of the sounds he had just
heard, and he and his master mounted together to a small room in a gable
over the hall-door, and from the casement of this they commanded a view
of the paved court in front. It was so dark, however, that they could
see nothing; and the thunder still echoing in loud explosions, and the
rain battering at the windows, prevented their distinctly hearing the
words which the voice was shouting outside. 'Shall we open the casement
and ask him what they want?' said the old negro. 'Let it alone,' said
his old master, shoving his arm back again, with a curse. At the same
moment a vivid flash of lightning, or rather several in almost
continuous succession, shed for some seconds a blue, pulsating
illumination over the scene, and then they saw before their eyes a
coach, with a team of horses and outriders, in the style of a royal
equipage, drawn up before the hall door; and all the postillions and
outriders were sitting motionless, with their whips pointing to the
house, as if they were signing to the inhabitants to come out: and some
one was looking from the window, and cried, in a tone like the shriek of
the wind--'The coach that Monsieur Le Prun ordered this morning.' In the
quivering blue light the whole thing looked like a smoky shadow, and was
swallowed in darkness in a moment. Then came the bellowing
thunder-burst, and a wild scream of winds rushed whooping, and sighing,
and hissing through the tree-tops, and died away in the unknown
distance. The two old sinners, master and man, crept away from the
window, and stumbled their way back again to the chamber which Monsieur
Le Prun had occupied before, and which, being in the rear of the house,
and most remote from the sight that had scared them, was preferred by
them to any other. In the morning a coach, of first-rate workmanship in
all respects, was standing in front of the hall door, just where they
had seen it on the night before, but no sign of horse, rider, or owner.
For several days it remained in the same position, no o