Episode 15

They were all locked, as I had expected, and the locks were comparatively new. But I went down the stone stairs to the hall where I had entered originally. I found I could pull back the bolts easily enough and unhook the great chains. But the door was locked, and the key was gone! That key must be in the Count's room.

I must watch should his door be unlocked, so that I may get it and escape.

I went on to make a thorough examination of the various stairs and passages, and to try the doors that opened from them.

One or two small rooms near the hall were open, but there was nothing to see in them except old furniture, dusty with age and moth-eaten.

At last, however, I found one door at the top of the stairway which, though it seemed locked, gave a little under pressure.

I tried it harder, and found that it was not really locked, but that the resistance came from the fact that the hinges had fallen somewhat,and the heavy door rested on the floor.

Here was an opportunity which I might not have again, so I exerted myself,and with many efforts forced it back so that I could enter.

I was now in a wing of the castle further to the right than the rooms I knew and a storey lower down. From the windows I could see that the suite of rooms lay along to the south of the castle, the windows of the end room looking out both west and south.

On the latter side, as well as to the former, there was a great precipice.

The castle was built on the corner of a great rock, so that on three sides it was quite impregnable, and great windows were placed here where sling, or bow, or culverin could not reach, and consequently light and comfort, impossible to a position which had to be guarded, were secured. To the west was a great valley, and then, rising far away, great jagged mountain fastnesses, rising peak on peak, the sheer rock studded with mountain ash and thorn, whose roots clung in cracks and crevices and crannies of the stone.

This was evidently the portion of the castle occupied by the ladies in bygone days, for the furniture had more an air of comfort than any I had seen.

The windows were curtainless, and the yellow moonlight, flooding in through the diamond panes, enabled one to see even colours, whilst it softened the wealth of dust which lay over all and disguised in some measure the ravages of time and moth.

My lamp seemed to be of little effect in the brilliant moonlight, but I was glad to have it with me, for there was a dread loneliness in the place which chilled my heart and made my nerves tremble.

Still, it was better than living alone in the rooms which I had come to hate from the presence of the Count, and after trying a little to school my nerves, I found a soft quietude come over me.

Here I am, sitting at a little oak table where in old times possibly some fair lady sat to pen, with much thought and many blushes, her ill-spelt love letter, and writing in my diary in shorthand all that has happened since I closed it last.

It is the nineteenth century up-to-date with a vengeance.

And yet, unless my senses deceive me, the old centuries had, and have, powers of their own which mere "modernity" cannot kill.

Later: The morning of 16 May.--God preserve my sanity, for to this I am reduced. Safety and the assurance of safety are things of the past.

Whilst I live on here there is but one thing to hope for, that I may not go mad, if, indeed, I be not mad already.

If I be sane, then surely it is maddening to think that of all the foul things that lurk in this hateful place the Count is the least dreadful to me, that to him alone I can look for safety, even though this be only whilst I can serve his purpose. Great God!

Merciful God, let me be calm, for out of that way lies madness indeed.

I begin to get new lights on certain things which have puzzled me.

Up to now I never quite knew what Shakespeare meant when he made Hamlet say, "My tablets! Quick, my tablets! `tis meet that I put it down," etc., For now, feeling as though my own brain were unhinged or as if the shock had come which must end in its undoing, I turn to my diary for repose. The habit of entering accurately must help to soothe me.

The Count's mysterious warning frightened me at the time. It frightens me more not when I think of it, for in the future he has a fearful hold upon me.

I shall fear to doubt what he may say!

When I had written in my diary and had fortunately replaced the book and pen in my pocket I felt sleepy. The Count's warning came into my mind, but I took pleasure in disobeying it.

The sense of sleep was upon me, and with it the obstinacy which sleep brings as outrider. The soft moonlight soothed, and the wide expanse without gave a sense of freedom which refreshed me.

I determined not to return tonight to the gloom-haunted rooms, but to sleep here, where, of old, ladies had sat and sung and lived sweet lives whilst their gentle breasts were sad for their menfolk away in the midst of remorseless wars.

I drew a great couch out of its place near the corner, so that as I lay, I could look at the lovely view to east and south,and unthinking of and uncaring for the dust, composed myself for sleep.

I suppose I must have fallen asleep. I hope so, but I fear, for all that followed was startlingly real, so real that now sitting here in the broad, full sunlight of the morning, I cannot in the least believe that it was all sleep.