As the evening closed we took possession of our rooms.  Our parlour had been that of the lady abbess, and A——­ had her bed-chamber.  These were spacious rooms and well furnished.  The girls were put into the cells, where girls ought never to be put.  Jetty had another near them, and, these dispositions made, I sallied forth alone, in quest of a sensation.

The intense heat of the day had engendered a gust.  The thunder was muttering among the “seven mountains,” and occasionally a flash of lightning illumined the pitchy darkness of the night.  I walked out into the grounds, where the wind was fiercely howling through the trees.  A new flash illumined the hills, and I distinctly saw the naked rock of the Drachenfels, with the broken tower tottering on the half-ruined crag, looked fearful and supernatural.  By watching a minute, another flash exposed Rolandseck, looking down upon me with melancholy solicitude.  Big drops began to patter on the leaves, and, still bent on sensations, I entered the buildings.

The cloisters were gloomy, but I looked into the vast, smoked, and cavern-like kitchen, where the household were consuming the fragments of our dinner.  A light shone from the door of a low cell, in a remote corner of the cloisters, and I stole silently to it, secretly hoping it would prove to be a supernatural glimmering above some grave.  The three Prussians were eating their cheese-parings and bread, by the light of a tallow candle, seated on a stone floor.  It was short work to squeeze all the poetry out of this group.

The storm thickened, and I mounted to the gallery, or the corridor above the cloisters, which communicated with our own rooms.  Here I paced back and forth, a moment, in obscurity, until, by means of a flash, I discovered a door, at one extremity of the passage.  Bent on adventure, I pushed and it opened.  As there were only moments when anything could be seen, I proceeded in utter darkness, using great caution not to fall through a trap.  Had it been my happy fortune to be a foundling, who had got his reading and writing “by nature,” I should have expected to return from the adventure a Herzog,[25] at least, if not an Erz-Herzog[26] Perhaps, by some inexplicable miracle of romance, I might have come forth the lawful issue of Roland and the nun!

[Footnote 25:  Duke.]

[Footnote 26:  Arch-Duke.]

As it was, I looked for no more than sensations, of which the hour promised to be fruitful.  I had not been a minute in the unknown region, before I found that, if it were not the abode of troubled spirits, it at least was worthy to be so.  You will remember that I am not now dealing in fiction, but truth, and that, unlike those who “read when they sing, and sing when they read,” I endeavour to be imaginative in poetry and literal in my facts.  I am now dealing strictly with the latter, which I expect will greatly enhance the interest of this adventure.