carriages. A little later I heard low sounds of music, evidently coming from the villa. What kind of music it was I could not exactly tell ; but it seemed to be rather melancholy, sad as a funeral march.
In afew moments, however, the music became silent, and I heard nothing but the scraping of the gravel under my feet. I hastened still more. The nearer I came to the palace the fewer dark personages I saw before it, and when I finally stopped directly in front of the villa, all was as still and quiet as if the palace had been uninhabited. At some other time this would have seemed strange to me; but now, remembering that I was coming to a special celebration, given in honor of an escamoteur who, after many years of study, desired to surprise his guests with an extraordinary performance, I did not wonder even when on entering the foyer I found myself in utter darkness. I only looked back on hearing the clapping of a large door; but I judged that all this was done only to strengthen the effect.
I stopped and waited to see what would happen next. But deep silence and darkness reigned all around. After some time, after my eye, coming suddenly from moonlight into darkness, had adapted itself to the dark, I noticed a streak of light a few paces before me. Coming nearer, I found that it was due to the moon-light penetrating through the half-open door from an adjoining room.
I opened the door wide and entered. The room was vacant and without any furniture; and though I had not been in the castle for a long time, I recollected that that room used to serve as an ante-chamber to the corridor leading to the main hall, where all greater banquets were usually held. I also remembered that this was the usual way to the main hall whenever a person did not wish to enter through the chief entrance. Knowing which way to go, I stepped to the window through which the moonlight was pouring in, and near which there was a secret tapestried door leading to the corridor. Without any difficulty I found a small knob in the wall,—a secret spring,— and pressing the knob I opened the door, as I had often done in the past.
