“What have we here?”

“Hark!” cried Emily, “what noise was that?”

“What noise was it?” said Ugo, starting up and listening. “Hush!” repeated Emily. “It surely came from the ramparts above:” and,
on looking up, they perceived a light moving along the walls, while, in
the next instant, the breeze swelling, the voice sounded louder than
before. “Who goes yonder?” cried a sentinel of the castle. “Speak or it will be
worse for you.” Bertrand uttered a shout of joy. “Hah! my brave
comrade, is it you?” said he, and he blew a shrill whistle, which
signal was answered by another from the soldier on watch; and the
party, then passing forward, soon after emerged from the woods upon the
broken road, that led immediately to the castle gates, and Emily saw,
with renewed terror, the whole of that stupendous structure. “Alas!”
said she to herself, “I am going again into my prison!”

“Here has been warm work, by St. Marco!” cried Bertrand, waving a torch
over the ground; “the balls have torn up the earth here with a
vengeance.”

“Aye,” replied Ugo, “they were fired from that redoubt, yonder, and
rare execution they did. The enemy made a furious attack upon the great
gates; but they might have guessed they could never carry it there;
for, besides the cannon from the walls, our archers, on the two round
towers, showered down upon them at such a rate, that, by holy Peter! there was no standing it. I never saw a better sight in my life; I
laughed, till my sides aked, to see how the knaves scampered. Bertrand,
my good fellow, thou shouldst have been among them; I warrant thou
wouldst have won the race!”

“Hah! you are at your old tricks again,” said Bertrand in a surly tone. “It is well for thee thou art so near the castle; thou knowest I have
killed my man before now.” Ugo replied only by a laugh, and then gave
some further account of the siege, to which as Emily listened, she was
struck by the strong contrast of the present scene with that which had
so lately been acted here. The mingled uproar of cannon, drums, and trumpets, the groans of the
conquered, and the shouts of the conquerors were now sunk into a
silence so profound, that it seemed as if death had triumphed alike
over the vanquished and the victor. The shattered condition of one of
the towers of the great gates by no means confirmed the _valiant_
account just given by Ugo of the scampering party, who, it was evident,
had not only made a stand, but had done much mischief before they took
to flight; for this tower appeared, as far as Emily could judge by the
dim moonlight that fell upon it, to be laid open, and the battlements
were nearly demolished. While she gazed, a light glimmered through one
of the lower loop-holes, and disappeared; but, in the next moment, she
perceived through the broken wall, a soldier, with a lamp, ascending
the narrow staircase, that wound within the tower, and, remembering
that it was the same she had passed up, on the night, when Barnardine
had deluded her with a promise of seeing Madame Montoni, fancy gave her
somewhat of the terror she had then suffered. She was now very near the
gates, over which the soldier having opened the door of the
portal-chamber, the lamp he carried gave her a dusky view of that
terrible apartment, and she almost sunk under the recollected horrors
of the moment, when she had drawn aside the curtain, and discovered the
object it was meant to conceal. “Perhaps,” said she to herself, “it is now used for a similar purpose;
perhaps, that soldier goes, at this dead hour, to watch over the corpse
of his friend!” The little remains of her fortitude now gave way to the
united force of remembered and anticipated horrors, for the melancholy
fate of Madame Montoni appeared to foretell her own. She considered,
that, though the Languedoc estates, if she relinquished them, would
satisfy Montoni’s avarice, they might not appease his vengeance, which
was seldom pacified but by a terrible sacrifice; and she even thought,
that, were she to resign them, the fear of justice might urge him
either to detain her a prisoner, or to take away her life. They were now arrived at the gates, where Bertrand, observing the light
glimmer through a small casement of the portal-chamber, called aloud;
and the soldier, looking out, demanded who was there. “Here, I have
brought you a prisoner,” said Ugo, “open the gate, and let us in.”

“Tell me first who it is, that demands entrance,” replied the soldier. “What! my old comrade,” cried Ugo, “don’t you know me? not know Ugo? I
have brought home a prisoner here, bound hand and foot—a fellow, who
has been drinking Tuscany wine, while we here have been fighting.”

“You will not rest till you meet with your match,” said Bertrand
sullenly. “Hah! my comrade, is it you?” said the soldier—“I’ll be with
you directly.”

Emily presently heard his steps descending the stairs within, and then
the heavy chain fall, and the bolts undraw of a small postern door,
which he opened to admit the party. He held the lamp low, to show the
step of the gate, and she found herself once more beneath the gloomy
arch, and heard the door close, that seemed to shut her from the world
for ever. In the next moment, she was in the first court of the castle,
where she surveyed the spacious and solitary area, with a kind of calm
despair; while the dead hour of the night, the gothic gloom of the
surrounding buildings, and the hollow and imperfect echoes, which they
returned, as Ugo and the soldier conversed together, assisted to
increase the melancholy forebodings of her heart. Passing on to the
second court, a distant sound broke feebly on the silence, and
gradually swelling louder, as they advanced, Emily distinguished voices
of revelry and laughter, but they were to her far other than sounds of
joy. “Why, you have got some Tuscany wine among you, _here_,” said
Bertrand, “if one may judge by the uproar that is going forward. Ugo
has taken a larger share of that than of fighting, I’ll be sworn. Who
is carousing at this late hour?”

“His _Excellenza_ and the Signors,” replied the soldier: “it is a sign
you are a stranger at the castle, or you would not need to ask the
question. They are brave spirits, that do without sleep—they generally
pass the night in good cheer; would that we, who keep the watch, had a
little of it! It is cold work, pacing the ramparts so many hours of the
night, if one has no good liquor to warm one’s heart.”

“Courage, my lad, courage ought to warm your heart,” said Ugo. “Courage!” replied the soldier sharply, with a menacing air, which Ugo
perceiving, prevented his saying more, by returning to the subject of
the carousal.