Page:The Necromancer, or, The Tale of the Black Forest Vol. 1.djvu/139

 I was already going to relate the strange events which I had witnessed at the Haunted Castle, when I suddenly was checked by the apprehension of drawing upon me the laugh of the company, or that some one or other would offer to encounter with me the nightly sportsmen, without being equal to that hazardous undertaking.

The Austrian spoke with uncommon warmth, his eyes sparkled, and the wrinkles on his brow were contracting closer and closer, and when the company persisted in contradicting his opinion, he offered to enforce his arguments by undeniable facts, which he himself had experienced, requesting to be heard in profound silence, which could not but be granted to a man like him. We expected to hear something very uncommon, and for some time gazed at him in dumb expectation, 'till he at length began as follows:

"Is I maintain that apparitions of super"natural beings ought not wholly to be re-