After taking half-a-dozen steps with extreme caution, I paused a moment, for the whole air appeared to be filled by a clatter, as if ten thousand bats’ wings were striking against glass.  This was evidently within the convent, while, without, the wind howled even louder than ever.  My hand rested on something, I knew not what.  At first I did not even know whether I was in the open air, or not, for I felt the wind, saw large spaces of dim light, and yet could distinguish that something like a vault impended over my head.  Presently a vivid flash of lightning removed all doubt.  It flickered, seemed extinguished, and flared up again, in a way to let me get some distinct ideas of the locus in quo.  I had clearly blundered into the convent chapel; not upon its pavement, which was on a level with the cloisters below, but into an open gallery, that communicated with the apartments of the nuns, and my hand was on the chair of the lady abbess, the only one that remained.  The dim light came from the high arched windows, and the bats’ wings were small broken panes rattling in the gale.  But I was not alone.  By the transient light I saw several grim figures, some kneeling, others with outstretched arms, bloody and seared, and one appeared to be in the confessional.  At the sight of these infernal spectres, for they came and went with the successive flashes of the lightning, by a droll chain of ideas, I caught myself shouting, rather than singing—­“Ship ahoy! ship ahoy!—­what cheer, what cheer?” in a voice loud as the winds.  At last, here was a sensation!  Half-a-dozen flashes rendered me familiar with the diabolical-looking forms, and as I now knew where to look for them, even their grim countenances were getting to be familiar.  At this moment, when I was about to address them in prose, the door by which I had entered the gallery opened slowly, and the withered face of an old woman appeared in a flash.  The thunder came next, and the face vanished—­“Ship ahoy! ship ahoy!—­what cheer, what cheer?” There was another pause—­the door once more opened, and the face re-appeared.  I gave a deep and loud groan; if you ask me why, I can only say, because it seemed to be wanting to the general effect of the scene and place.  The door slammed, the face vanished, and I was alone again with the demons.  By this time the gust was over I groped my way out of the gallery, stole through the corridor into my own room, and went to bed.  I ought to have had exciting dreams, especially after the Liebfraumilch, but, contrary to all rule, I slept like a postilion in a cock-loft, or a midshipman in the middle watch.

The next morning at breakfast, A——­ had a melancholy tale to relate; how the poor old crone, who has already been mentioned, had been frightened by the gust—­how she stole to the chapel to mutter a prayer—­how she opened the door of the gallery—­how she heard strange sounds, and particularly certain groans—­how she had dropped the candle—­how the door had