several; but their watery trail, if soon enough followed, would be
their ruin as certainly as Hop-o'-my-Thumb's pebbles were safety to
himself and his brothers. He stood therefore the very bond slave of
perplexity, 'and, like a neutral to his will and matter, did
nothing.'

Presently they heard the approaching step of the marquis, which
every one in the castle knew. It stopped within a few feet of them,
and through the thick door they could hear his short asthmatic
breathing.

They kept as still as their trembling, and the mad beating of their
hearts, would permit. Amanda was nearly out of her senses, and
thought her heart was beating against the door, and not against her
own ribs. But the marquis never thought of the chapel, having at
once concluded that they had fled through the open hall. Had he not,
however, been so weary and sad and listless, he would probably have
found them, for he would at least have crossed the hall to look into
the next court, and, the moon now shining brightly, the absence of
all track on the floor where the traces of the brief inundation
ceased, would have surely indicated the direction in which they had
sought refuge.

The acme of terror happily endured but a moment. The sound of his
departing footsteps took the ghoul from their hearts; they began to
breathe, and to hope that the danger was gone. But they waited long
ere at last they ventured, like wild animals overtaken by the
daylight, to creep out of their shelter and steal back like
shadows--but separately, Amanda first, and Scudamore some slow
minutes after--to their different quarters. The tracks they could