A Sicilian Romance

The light quickly disappeared, and he heard the door that opened upon

the tower suddenly close. He reached it, and forcing it open, sprang

forward; but the place was dark and solitary, and there was no

appearance of any person having passed along it. He looked up the

tower, and the chasm which the stair-case exhibited, convinced him

that no human being could have passed up. He stood silent and amazed;

examining the place with an eye of strict enquiry, he perceived a

door, which was partly concealed by hanging stairs, and which till now

had escaped his notice. Hope invigorated curiosity, but his

expectation was quickly disappointed, for this door also was fastened.

He tried in vain to force it. He knocked, and a hollow sullen sound

ran in echoes through the place, and died away at a distance. It was

evident that beyond this door were chambers of considerable extent,

but after long and various attempts to reach them, he was obliged to

desist, and he quitted the tower as ignorant and more dissatisfied

than he had entered it.

He returned to the hall, which he now for the

first time deliberately surveyed. It was a spacious and desolate

apartment, whose lofty roof rose into arches supported by pillars of

black marble. The same substance inlaid the floor, and formed the

stair-case. The windows were high and gothic. An air of proud

sublimity, united with singular wildness, characterized the place, at

the extremity of which arose several gothic arches, whose dark shade

veiled in obscurity the extent beyond. On the left hand appeared two

doors, each of which was fastened, and on the right the grand entrance

from the courts. Ferdinand determined to explore the dark recess which

terminated his view, and as he traversed the hall, his imagination,

affected by the surrounding scene, often multiplied the echoes of his

footsteps into uncertain sounds of strange and fearful import.

He reached the arches, and discovered beyond a kind of inner hall, of

considerable extent, which was closed at the farther end by a pair of

massy folding-doors, heavily ornamented with carving. They were

fastened by a lock, and defied his utmost strength.

As he surveyed the place in silent wonder, a sullen groan arose from

beneath the spot where he stood. His blood ran cold at the sound, but

silence returning, and continuing unbroken, he attributed his alarm to

the illusion of a fancy, which terror had impregnated. He made another

effort to force the door, when a groan was repeated more hollow, and

more dreadful than the first. At this moment all his courage forsook

him; he quitted the door, and hastened to the stair-case, which he

ascended almost breathless with terror.