some grave. The three
Prussians were eating their cheese-parings and bread, by the light of a
tallow candle, seated on a stone floor. It was short work to squeeze all
the poetry out of this group.

The storm thickened, and I mounted to the gallery, or the corridor above
the cloisters, which communicated with our own rooms. Here I paced back
and forth, a moment, in obscurity, until, by means of a flash, I
discovered a door, at one extremity of the passage. Bent on adventure, I
pushed and it opened. As there were only moments when anything could be
seen, I proceeded in utter darkness, using great caution not to fall
through a trap. Had it been my happy fortune to be a foundling, who had
got his reading and writing "by nature," I should have expected to
return from the adventure a Herzog,[25] at least, if not an
Erz-Herzog[26] Perhaps, by some inexplicable miracle of romance, I might
have come forth the lawful issue of Roland and the nun!

[Footnote 25: Duke.]

[Footnote 26: Arch-Duke.]

As it was, I looked for no more than sensations, of which the hour
promised to be fruitful. I had not been a minute in the unknown region,
before I found that, if it were not the abode of troubled spirits, it at
least was worthy to be so. You will remember that I am not now dealing
in fiction, but truth, and that, unlike those who "read when they sing,
and sing when they read," I endeavour to be imaginative in poetry and
literal in my facts. I am now dealing strictly with the latter, which I
expect will greatly enhance the interest of this adventure.

After taking half-a-dozen steps with extreme caution, I paused a moment,
for the whole air appeared to be filled by a clatter, as if ten thousand
bats' wings were striking against glass. This was evidently within the
convent, while, without, the wind howled even louder than ever. My hand
rested on something, I knew not what. At first I did not even know
whether I was in the open air, or not, for I felt the wind, saw large
spaces of dim light, and yet could distinguish that something like a
vault impended over my head. Presently a vivid flash of lightning
removed all doubt. It flickered, seemed extinguished, and flared up
again, in a way to let me get some distinct ideas of the _locus in quo_.
I had clearly blundered into the convent chapel; not upon its pavement,
which was on a level with the cloisters below, but into an open gallery,
that communicated with the apartments of the nuns, an