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 no little my consternation. Overturning the candle in my rapid progress, I rushed along the corridor in utter darkness, until I found my speed arrested by some one pulling vigorously at my dressing-gown. Desperation now supplied the place of courage, and with a backward thrust, I plunged my sabre-point deep into the body of my pursuer. This defensive blow did not, however, release me from his grasp; and to aggravate my perplexity, I now heard immediately behind me the agonizing sobs and groans which had so often alarmed me during this eventful night. During this climax of horrors, the creaking of the armoury door diverted my attention from the awful sounds at my elbow, and my heart died within me as I beheld the two mailed spectres hastening with long strides and uplifted swords and lanterns towards me.

By the approaching light I now discovered to my infinite relief, that my flight had been arrested by neither human nor superhuman interference, but simply by the iron door-latch of one of the hall stoves, which was supplied with fuel through an aperture in the corridor, as is still the custom in many modern houses throughout Germany. My long dressing-gown had floated behind me as I rushed down the corridor; the projecting latch had caught the lining, and my sabre had pierced no hostile pursuer but the tightly extended skirt of my unfortunate garment. Hastily extricating myself by severing the skirt with a sabre cut, I turned round and desperately faced my grim antagonists, who were now within a few yards of me, and held up their lanterns as if to assist their examination of my features.

Brandishing my sabre, I shouted, “Avaunt, ye hellish forms!” but, to my indescribable amazement, they suddenly paused, exchanged a few words, threw down their swords, and, raising their beavers, showed me the broad, bluff features of my aunt’s gardeners, two old Austrian dragoons, whose tall athletic figures I had scanned with a soldier’s eye during my evening walk to the ruins. A ludicrous explanation now ensued, and I heard that in consequence of the appearance of some marauders in the mountains, my aunt’s steward had ordered the gardeners to sleep by turns in the old armoury as a protection to the valuable property deposited there. The old soldiers, whose long campaigning had not much abated their dread of the supernatural, were afraid to mount guard alone in the armoury, and had agreed to watch there together; but, unable to sleep during the storm, had challenged each other to a game at broadsword, by way of killing the time, and, to heighten the joke, had donned two suits of the old armour which hung round the walls of the armoury. The steward was not aware of my intention to occupy the apartments in the tower; and, had the men not previously seen me in the garden with the baroness, a serious, and too probably, fatal encounter would have been the consequence of the critical situation I have described. On farther inquiry, I found that whenever one of these lusty knights had placed an effective blow, they burst into a horse laugh, which, sounding from their capacious throats through the barred helmets, and reverberating through the lofty corridor, had produced the unnatural and gong-like peal which had so much astonished and alarmed me. They acknowledged, too, that they had been no little terrified when they saw a tall figure in white, with a naked sabre, enter the armoury; that, however, they had gathered courage from my sudden retreat, and, beginning to suspect that I was a robber, had pursued and recognised me. I had found, also, a clue to the mysterious sobs and lamentations in the corridor, while endeavouring to separate my dressing-gown from the latch, during which operation the creaking hinges of the stove door, not having been oiled for many years, emitted the wailing, groaning sounds which had made my blood run cold. While still examining the stove, another tremendous blast shook the corridor, and the storm-gust, rushing down the capacious chimney, burst open the heavy iron door, which fell back against the iron catch, and rebounding twice with the shock, explained very naturally the fancied hammer-blows of the Grand Master upon the iron cross: the expiring gust then moving the door more gently on its rusty hinges, made them wail and creak as before; after which the diminishing current, rushing through the imperfectly closed door, produced the intermitting, sobbing noise, which my tortured imagi-. XXIV.