very beautiful, I may possibly extend my ramble a little."

So down the steps I lounged, looking first over my right, and then over
my left shoulder, like a man uncertain which direction to take, and I
sauntered up the road, gazing now at the moon, and now at the thin white
clouds in the opposite direction, whistling, all the time, an air which
I had picked up at one of the theatres.

When I had got a couple of hundred yards away from the Dragon Volant, my
minstrelsy totally ceased; and I turned about, and glanced sharply down
the road, that looked as white as hoar-frost under the moon, and saw the
gable of the old inn, and a window, partly concealed by the foliage,
with a dusky light shining from it.

No sound of footstep was stirring; no sign of human figure in sight. I
consulted my watch, which the light was sufficiently strong to enable me
to do. It now wanted but eight minutes of the appointed hour. A thick
mantle of ivy at this point covered the wall and rose in a clustering
head at top.

It afforded me facilities for scaling the wall, and a partial screen for
my operations if any eye should chance to be looking that way. And now
it was done. I was in the park of the Chateau de la Carque, as nefarious
a poacher as ever trespassed on the grounds of unsuspicious lord!

Before me rose the appointed grove, which looked as black as a clump of
gigantic hearse plumes. It seemed to tower higher and higher at every
step; and cast a broader and blacker shadow toward my feet. On I
marched, and was glad when I plunged into the shadow which concealed me.
Now I was among the grand old lime and chestnut trees--my heart beat