CHAPTER VIII


_The Somnambulist._

One night I was sitting in my room, devouring an old romance which I had
brought from the library. It was late. The fire blazed bright; but the
candles were nearly burnt out, and I grew sleepy over the volume,
romance as it was.

Suddenly I found myself on my feet, listening with an agony of
intention. Whether I had heard anything I could not tell; but I felt as
if I had. Yes; I was sure of it. Far away, somewhere in the labyrinthine
pile, I heard a faint cry. Driven by some secret impulse, I flew,
without a moment's reflection, to the closet door, lifted the tapestry
within, unfastened the second door, and stood in the great waste echoing
hall, amid the touches, light and ghostly, of the cobwebs set afloat in
the eddies occasioned by my sudden entrance.

A faded moonbeam fell on the floor, and filled the place with an ancient
dream-light, which wrought strangely on my brain, and filled it, as if
it, too, were but a deserted, sleepy house, haunted by old dreams and
memories. Recollecting myself, I went back for a light; but the candles
were both flickering in the sockets, and I was compelled to trust to the
moon. I ascended the staircase. Old as it was, not a board creaked, not
a banister shook--the whole felt solid as rock. Finding, at length, no
more stair to ascend, I groped my way on; for here there was no direct
light from the moon--only the light of the moonlit air. I was in some