CHAPTER X.

As Sir Archibald approached the spot, he found that although the turret, when seen at a distance, certainly gave the idea of a place long since abandoned to the owls, there were other parts of the building in better preservation. It seemed to have been one of the strongest of those strong castles for which Brittany was once renowned; and although now in ruins, and altogether deserted, except by a keeper of humble rank, its fortifications and outworks, as well as a portion of the interior, were in the taste of the last century.

The edifice stood upon the steep of a thickly-wooded hill, the sides of which were broken, and rendered of difficult access by rocks, ravines, and precipices. The faint light of the moon only revealed the outlines of the loftiest towers, while the rest of the building was enveloped in doubtful shadow. An air of dusky and mysterious grandeur presided over the whole object; and as Douglas, after crossing the moat by a permanent bridge, approached the gate, he half expected his summons to be answered by one of those goblin forms of which he had heard in the tales of the minstrels.

The gateway, however, was open, and the door half embedded in the earth. The arch was ornamented with heads of wolves and wild boars grinning down upon the visitor: it was flanked at either corner by turrets, where the warders once kept their ceaseless watch; and surmounted, in the middle, by a lofty corps-de-garde. Three ditches he thus passed, and three walls, from six to eight feet thick; and while traversing the dreary courts between, our traveller, it must be said, trode softly, rather from feeling than policy, as if thinking that even the sound of his armed heels upon the ground was there an intrusion and an impertinence.

He at length found himself in the great square court, surrounded by the buildings of the castle. Underneath, were the cellars, the subterraneans and the prisons; above these, on the ground story, the habitable apartments, as well as the stables, fowl-houses, and dovecotes, to the right and left of the gate; and on the upper story, the stores, larders, and arsenals. The whole of the roofs of this grand square were bordered by parapets machecoulis, chemins-deronde, and turrets. In the centre of the court was the lofty donjon, rising like an enormous tower from the midst of the surrounding buildings, and containing the state apart

ments, and the treasury. This, which might be called the heart of the fortress, was encircled by a deep ditch; and although its walls, like those of the other parts of the edi fice, were at least six feet thick, it was further strengthened by a shirt, or second wall of equal thickness, formed of solid blocks of cut stone, and rising to one-half the height of the donjon itself.

The prodigious strength of the donjon, as might have been expected, had withstood more successfully than the rest of the building the effects of neglect and time. The sides of the square of which Douglas made the complete tour, were in some places open to the weather, and in all ruined and desolate. Sometimes, by the uncertain light of the moon falling through the broken roofs of the chambers, inany of which were vaulted, he could see the remains of the stained glass with which their ogive windows had been adorned. In some apartments, the floor was paved in squares of different colours; in others, the pillars which supported the joists were still encrusted with fillets and flowers of tin; in others, the walls still showed the remains of paintings, representing figures as large as life, holding scrolls in their hands, on which it was the custom in great houses to inscribe moral sentences for the edification of the guests.

Having ascertained that the meeting could be held in none of the ordinary apartments of the castle, our adventurer now proceeded with a firm step, but an anxious heart, to the donjon; and having crossed the moat by a drawbridge, embedded in the earth, and long since become a permanent avenue, he struck with the hilt of his sword upon the mouldering door. When the hollow echoes of the sound had died away, he heard a voice within, followed by the efforts of some feeble or unsteady hand to withdraw the bolt.

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There is the last!" said the voice, in a cracked treble, "By St. Gildas! there hath scarce been such a jubilee in my time; no, not since the murther of the young lord in the Devil's Chamber.* What, art sleep old Raoul? Put thy pith to it, man, as if feigning thou wast flesh and blood, instead of a dried skinful of rotting bones. 'Slife! I must help thee myself, although I am the seneschal, and thou only my valet. Now, stand on one side, and hold thy ske

*In Camera Diabolorum-in Camera Viride, and similar names taken either from the colour of the tapestry, or the representations it contained, occur in the manuscript inventories of the fourteenth century.

leton erect while he enters, for the credit of the house of Laval!"

Douglas was received with a profound bow by the personage calling himself the seneschal; a little withered man at the very verge of human life, with a beard as white as snow, who leaned on a stick of the same colour, taller than himself, and resembling the rod of a gentleman usher. The appearance of the valet was in nowise different from that of his master except in dress, and also by his skeleton being rounded at the back like a bow, whereas that of the other was as straight and official-looking as his wand.

"There be no more of you, I trow, Messire?" said the seneschal, in the tone of asking a question of which he knew the answer, while the valet shut and bolted the door. “I know not,” replied Douglas ;

me?"

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are there many before

"A round dozen! twelve, as I am a sinner! Is it not thus, Raoul?"

"Yea: he is the thirteenth.”

"He! he he! said I not so? Go to: it is not a man who hath kept a house like this for fifty years, that thou wilt find napping. I knew his tread the moment he entered the inner gate; tramp, tramp, tramp, it went round the square

and thou, like a superannuated fool, would have called him in as if he wanted bidding of ours! Wait, said I, wait, old Raoul; have but a grain of patience, for those feet will carry him here, were his eyes shut, and a tombstone on his back. Said I not so?—the very words?"

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'Yea," answered Raoul, "I will not gainsay it."

66 "He! he he! See what it is to be a fellow of experience! Tramp, tramp, tramp, came the footsteps again by the other side of the square; and knock! knock! knock! went the hilts against the door! Thou art the thirteenth, Sir Knight, and there's an end!"

"That was the number then expected!"

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"Nay-twelve," interposed Raoul.

"Thou wilt talk! God sain thee, neighbour! Alas, old Raoul! And in troth, Sir Knight, it was twelve as this poor man says-but when will the devil be left out of such a reckoning? Now, the twelfth man, you must know, was to have been the victim!"

"How !"

"It is gospel-true. Have I lied, old Raoul? Speak up, if thou yet hoardest a morsel of tongue for the worms!" It was the twelfth man-I will not gainsay it: and

moreover"

"Moreover! Moreover what? Over twelve? Why, that would give thyself the lie; for, over twelve is thirteen. And so, Messire, it being a dark moon like this of to-night, and one of the company, whose heart failed him, slipping behind the tapestry to be out of the mischief, the twelfth man, entering with vizor closed like the rest, was counted for the eleventh. Thus did he escape, surrounded by ten hands each grasping its miséricorde.* But even as St. Abraham was tricked by the devil, who caused him to sacrifice his own flesh and blood, instead of a good fat buck— even so was foiled that day the Lord de Retz. For, lo you now, Sir Knight! who would enter thereupon, unwished for, and unbidden? Who I say should mount those very stairs against the will of those who kept them? Who should force himself head and shoulders into an affair with which he had no more business than thou? Who but the young lord himself? I tell you, sir, there were ten daggers clashed in his body in the same instant; and his father's clashed the loudest! Is it not so, old Raoul? Answer, if there be anything but mere bones within thy skin? Hold up thy defunct face, and tell me whether I have lied!"

"Thou hast spoken truly; I will not gainsay it: and, by the same token, the castle from that day was suffered to fall into ruin; being deserted by all but you and me who were left in charge, and—”

"And another! He! he! he! Well said, old Raoul! Well said, i'faith! And so, Sir Knight, being the thirteenth, as I have said, we bid you heartily welcome!"

The entrance hall was not deep enough to require much time to traverse it; and yet the thirteenth visitor-although appearing disdainful and impatient did not reach the farther end, till the last words of this ominous tale had fallen upon his ear. He then, partly deceived by the want of light for the place was only illuminated by a single lamp fixed to the wall-and partly, from pre-occupation of mind, instead of mounting the great staircase, struck into a dim opening beside it. He discovered his mistake after ascending two or three steep and narrow steps, and returned hastily. The two old men were looking eagerly towards the spot, with a ghastly smile on their faces; but when the knight made his appearance again at the opening, the merriment of the seneschal broke forth in a shrill, cracked,

* The small dagger which the knights made use of to dispatch the enemies they had overthrown; so called, from the exclamation for "mercy," with which the vanquished could avert the blow,

"He! he he!" and was joined, for the first time, by the laugh of his comrade, which sounded as if it came from a coffin.

"That is the way thou must go," said he of the wand, "for it is the stair of the Thirteenth; and, being wiser today than we were fifty years ago, we will not try to stay thee. Tell me, old Raoul, for thou wert by; did not the young lord dart into that door, when we held him off from mounting the great stair with the point of our weapons? Open thy jaws and answer, if thou hast any dregs of life in thee."

"He did so; I will not gainsay it. Yet nevertheless it was by the great stair he returned.”

"Well said, old Raoul, well said, i'faith; now answer me again; unclose thy lips once more, if they be anything else than musty parchment, damp with mouldiness, and wormeaten like a coffin that hath served two corses after what manner came he down the great stair? Expound, as thou be'st a true valet! Ha?"

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He! he he! "He! he he!

Heels foremost! He! he! he!"

By St. Gildas, thou art a rare companion, all that is left of thee! I tell thee what, Sir Knight, it is of no use to stand shilly-shallying. away with thee, for thou canst not choose."

About face and

The feelings may be conceived with which Douglas listened to such ominous discourse, between two creatures who, although dressed like living men and standing on their legs, looked as if a winding-sheet was their usual costume, and the grave their abiding-place. Their laugh, however, although it had chilled his blood more than their words, sounded so much like a taunt that his knightly pride was at length roused. He remembered that the secret passage was the best and safest avenue he could take in his present character; and controlling as well as possible the kind of horror which crept through his blood, he turned round as the seneschal directed, and, without uttering a word began anew to ascend the steep staircase. He was pursued for some time, as he climbed, by the ghastly laugh of the old men; but, praying fervently to every saint whose name he could recollect in the confusion of the moment, he at length found himself out of hearing.

He was in utter darkness; and the stair, besides being so steep and irregular that, in more than one place, he was obliged to use hands and knees in the ascent, was so close and damp that he might have fancied himself in a burying vault. The idea again occurred to him that he was walking