from the lofty windows. They went down to the broad platform at the top of
the stairs in front of the door to receive their visitors. By degrees the
festivities of the evening commenced. The same smiles flew forth both at
eyes and lips, darting like beams through the gathering crowd. Music, from
unseen sources, now rolled in billows, now crept in ripples through the
sea of air that filled the lofty rooms. And in the dancing halls, when
hand took hand, and form and motion were moulded and swayed by the
indwelling music, it governed not these alone, but, as the ruling spirit
of the place, every new burst of music for a new dance swept before it a
new and accordant odour, and dyed the flames that glowed in the lofty
lamps with a new and accordant stain. The floors bent beneath the feet of
the time-keeping dancers. But twice in the evening some of the inmates
started, and the pallor occasionally common to the household overspread
their faces, for they felt underneath them a counter-motion to the dance,
as if the floor rose slightly to answer their feet. And all the time their
brother lay below in the dungeon, like John the Baptist in the castle of
Herod, when the lords and captains sat around, and the daughter of
Herodias danced before them. Outside, all around the castle, brooded the
dark night unheeded; for the clouds had come up from all sides, and were
crowding together overhead. In the unfrequent pauses of the music, they
might have heard, now and then, the gusty rush of a lonely wind, coming
and going no one could know whence or whither, born and dying unexpected
and unregarded.

"But when the festivities were at their height, when the external and
passing confidence which is produced between superficial natures by a
common pleasure was at the full, a sudden crash of thunder quelled the
music, as the thunder quells the noise of the uplifted sea. The windows
were driven in, and torrents of rain, carried in the folds of a rushing
wind, poured into the halls. The lights were swept away; and the great