e soldiers had received orders from the Stadtholder in the Mark, when
they relieved guard, to convey instant tidings to the guardhouse if
anything remarkable should occur.

In order to convey instant tidings, they must of course take to their
heels and forsake their posts. This was the only comfort of the soldier
who was stationed in the vestibule leading to the princely apartments, and
therefore he stood close to the door, which was only upon the latch, that
he might the more rapidly gain the grand corridor, and warn in his flight
the sentinels there. Yet he dared not open his eyes, and his heart beat so
violently that it took away his breath.

The great cathedral clock tolled the hour of midnight with loud and heavy
strokes. The clock in the castle tower gave answer, and then the wall
clock in the great corridor slowly and solemnly struck twelve.

The soldier closed his eyes, and murmured with trembling lips, "All good
spirits praise the Lord our God."

The clangor of the clocks had ceased, and all again was still.

The soldier ventured to open his eyes again. As yet no sound broke in upon
the stillness; his glance timidly and slowly made the circuit of the hall.
The two oil lamps burned clearly enough to enable him to survey the whole
intervening space. He saw everything quite distinctly. There the door with
the lamps, here the door beside which he leaned; against the wall on that
side those two huge, black wooden presses, so curiously carved, and
between them that little door. This door began to make him uneasy. Whither
did it lead? Why stood no guard there? Was it locked or merely latched? He
asked himself all this with quickly beating heart, and could not turn his
glance from it. He had never before observed it. Now it seemed to him as
if it moved! A cold shudder ran through his whole frame.

Yes, it was no illusion! Yes, the door opened, and there stood the White
Lady in her long, flowing robes! The soldier did not shriek, for horror
had frozen the scream upon his lips. He tore open the door, and rushed
into the corridor, and his deadly pale and terrorstricken face imparted
with greater rapidity than words to the two sentinels there the dreadful
tidings. All three ran down the corridor together to the front door, down
the steps, across the wide court, and into the guardroom.

"The White Lady! the White Lady!" they gasped.

"Where is she? Who has seen her?" inquired a form emerging from the rear
of the room