第55章

unquiet slumber. But on the second, or at farthest the third night after your arrival, you will probably have a violent storm. Peals of thunder so loud as to seem to shake the edifice to its foundation will roll round the neighbouring mountains--and during the frightful gusts of wind which accompany it, you will probably think you discern (for your lamp is not extinguished) one part of the hanging more violently agitated than the rest.

Unable of course to repress your curiosity in so favourable a moment for indulging it, you will instantly arise, and throwing your dressing-gown around you, proceed to examine this mystery. After a very short search, you will discover a division in the tapestry so artfully constructed as to defy the minutest inspection, and on opening it, a door will immediately appear--which door, being only secured by massy bars and a padlock, you will, after a few efforts, succeed in opening--and, with your lamp in your hand, will pass through it into a small vaulted room.""No, indeed; I should be too much frightened to do any such thing.""What! Not when Dorothy has given you to understand that there is a secret subterraneous communication between your apartment and the chapel of St. Anthony, scarcely two miles off? Could you shrink from so simple an adventure?

No, no, you will proceed into this small vaulted room, and through this into several others, without perceiving anything very remarkable in either. In one perhaps there may be a dagger, in another a few drops of blood, and in a third the remains of some instrument of torture;but there being nothing in all this out of the common way, and your lamp being nearly exhausted, you will return towards your own apartment. In repassing through the small vaulted room, however, your eyes will be attracted towards a large, old-fashioned cabinet of ebony and gold, which, though narrowly examining the furniture before, you had passed unnoticed. Impelled by an irresistible presentiment, you will eagerly advance to it, unlock its folding doors, and search into every drawer--but for some time without discovering anything of importance--perhaps nothing but a considerable hoard of diamonds. At last, however, by touching a secret spring, an inner compartment will open--a roll of paper appears--you seize it--it contains many sheets of manuscript--you hasten with the precious treasure into your own chamber, but scarcely have you been able to decipher 'Oh! Thou--whomsoever thou mayst be, into whose hands these memoirs of the wretched Matilda may fall'--when your lamp suddenly expires in the socket, and leaves you in total darkness.""Oh! No, no--do not say so. Well, go on."But Henry was too much amused by the interest he had raised to be able to carry it farther; he could no longer command solemnity either of subject or voice, and was obliged to entreat her to use her own fancy in the perusal of Matilda's woes. Catherine, recollecting herself, grew ashamed of her eagerness, and began earnestly to assure him that her attention had been fixed without the smallest apprehension of really meeting with what he related.