The clock struck twelve, and I
heard the servant barring the great door. I took my candle. The lights
in this rural hostelry were by this time out, and the house had the air
of one that had settled to slumber for many hours. The cold moonlight
streamed in at the window on the landing as I ascended the broad
staircase; and I paused for a moment to look over the wooded grounds to
the turreted château, to me, so full of interest. I bethought me,
however, that prying eyes might read a meaning in this midnight gazing,
and possibly the Count himself might, in his jealous mood, surmise a
signal in this unwonted light in the stair-window of the Dragon Volant. On opening my room door, with a little start, I met an extremely old
woman with the longest face I ever saw; she had what used to be termed a
high-cauld-cap on, the white border of which contrasted with her brown
and yellow skin, and made her wrinkled face more ugly. She raised her
curved shoulders, and looked up in my face, with eyes unnaturally black
and bright. "I have lighted a little wood, Monsieur, because the night is chill." I thanked her, but she did not go. She stood with her candle in her
tremulous fingers. "Excuse an old woman, Monsieur," she said; "but what on earth can a
young English _milord_, with all Paris at his feet, find to amuse
him in the Dragon Volant?" Had I been at the age of fairy tales, and in daily intercourse with the
delightful Countess d'Aulnois, I should have seen in this withered
apparition, the _genius loci_, the malignant fairy, at the stamp of
whose foot the ill-fated tenants of this very room had, from time to
time, vanished. I was past that, however; but the old woman's dark eyes
were fixed on mine with a steady meaning that plainly told me that my
secret was known. I was embarrassed and alarmed; I never thought of
asking her what business that was of hers. "These old eyes saw you in the park of the château tonight." "_I_!" I began, with all the scornful surprise I could affect. "It avails nothing, Monsieur; I know why you stay here; and I tell you
to begone. Leave this house tomorrow morning, and never come again." She lifted her disengaged hand, as she looked at me with intense horror
in her eyes. "There is nothing on earth--I don't know what you mean," I answered,
"and why should you care about me?" "I don't care about you, Monsieur--I care about the honor of an ancient
family, whom I served in their happier days, when to be noble was to be
honored. But my words are thrown away, Monsieur; you are insolent. I
will keep my secret, and you, yours; that is all. You will soon find it
hard enough to divulge it." The old woman went slowly from the room and shut the door, before I had
made up my mind to say anything. I was standing where she had left me,
nearly five minutes later. The jealousy of Monsieur the Count, I
assumed, appears to this old creature about the most terrible thing in
creation. Whatever contempt I might entertain for the dangers which this
old lady so darkly intimated, it was by no means pleasant, you may
suppose, that a secret so dangerous should be so much as suspected by a
stranger, and that stranger a partisan of the Count de St. Alyre. Ought I not, at all risks, to apprise the Countess, who had trusted me
so generously, or, as she said herself, so madly, of the fact that our
secret was, at least, suspected by another? But was there not greater
danger in attempting to communicate? What did the beldame mean by
saying, "Keep your secret, and I'll keep mine?" I had a thousand distracting questions before me. My progress seemed
like a journey through the Spessart, where at every step some new goblin
or monster starts from the ground or steps from behind a tree. Peremptorily I dismissed these harassing and frightful doubts. I secured
my door, sat myself down at my table and, with a candle at each side,
placed before me the piece of vellum which contained the drawings and
notes on which I was to rely for full instructions as to how to use the
key. When I had studied this for awhile I made my investigation. The angle of
the room at the right side of the window was cut off by an oblique turn
in the wainscot. I examined this carefully, and, on pressure, a small
bit of the frame of the woodwork slid aside, and disclosed a key-hole. On removing my finger, it shot back to its place again, with a spring. So far I had interpreted my instructions successfully. A similar search,
next the door, and directly under this, was rewarded by a like
discovery. The small end of the key fitted this, as it had the upper
key-hole; and now, with two or three hard jerks at the key, a door in
the panel opened, showing a strip of the bare wall and a narrow, arched
doorway, piercing the thickness of the wall; and within which I saw a
screw staircase of stone. Candle in hand I stepped in. I do not know whether the quality of air,
long undisturbed, is peculiar; to me it has always seemed so, and the
damp smell of the old masonry hung in this atmosphere. My candle faintly
lighted the bare stone wall that enclosed the stair, the foot of which I
could not see. Down I went, and a few turns brought me to the stone
floor. Here was another door, of the simple, old, oak kind, deep sunk in
the thickness of the wall. The large end of the key fitted this. The
lock was stiff; I set the candle down upon the stair, and applied both
hands; it turned with difficulty and, as it revolved, uttered a shriek
that alarmed me for my secret. For some minutes I did not move. In a little time, however, I took
courage, and opened the door. The night-air floating in puffed out the
candle. There was a thicket of holly and underwood, as dense as a
jungle, close about the door. I should have been in pitch-darkness, were
it not that through the topmost leaves there twinkled, here and there, a
glimmer of moonshine. Softly, lest anyone should have opened his window at the sound of the
rusty bolt, I struggled through this till I gained a view of the open
grounds. Here I found that the brushwood spread a good way up the park,
uniting with the wood that approached the little temple I have
described. A general could not have chosen a more effectually-covered approach from
the Dragon Volant to the trysting-place where hitherto I had conferred
with the idol of my lawless adoration. Looking back upon the old inn I discovered that the stair I descended
was enclosed in one of those slender turrets that decorate such
buildings. It was placed at that angle which corresponded with the part
of the paneling of my room indicated in the plan I had been studying. Thoroughly satisfied with my experiment I made my way back to the door
with some little difficulty, remounted to my room, locked my secret door
again; kissed the mysterious key that her hand had pressed that night,
and placed it under my pillow, upon which, very soon after, my giddy
head was laid, not, for some time, to sleep soundly.