Page:The genius - Carl Grosse tr Joseph Trapp 1796.djvu/145

 ters than ours. For my own part, I do not hesitate to confess, that scarce one half of all this, would have been enough to stimulate my senses, had they not already been too much roused by the danger I was in.

The dreary hour of midnight now drew very near. The widow, according to agreement, took her feat in a corner of the chamber, and I occupied her place in bed, attentively watching the least motion or stirring around me.

Twelve o clock strikes. The drops of a heavy shower beat loudly against the windows; the very air of the room seems agitated, and the bedstead and all the woodwork begins to crack. In a few minutes the moon darting in her silver beams, enables me to distinguish better every object around me. Of a sudden the curtains of the bed are drawn open, and a muffled figure, slowly advances and takes place at the foot of the bed. It waved one hand, as if it wanted to speak, but did not utter a single word; and having waited about a minute in expectation of hearing something, I rose upright in the bed.