Thus passed hour after hour, and midnight drew near.  Count Schwarzenberg’s festival was not yet over, the Electoral family had not yet returned, and silence unbroken reigned throughout the castle.  With slow, measured tread went the sentinels to and fro before the palace and through the inner corridors.  At times the loud shouts of the populace penetrated in faint echoes even to the castle, and flew like spirit whispers through the broad vestibule fronting the Electoral Prince’s suite of rooms.  The soldier on guard there heard them with a shudder, and all the stories of ghosts and specters told about the Electoral palace awoke to his remembrance.  He cast a disturbed glance around, and, holding his breath, listened with loudly beating heart to the soft sounds and murmurs vibrating through the hall.  Suddenly he quite distinctly seemed to hear soft, gliding steps approaching him from the other side of the vestibule.  His blood stood still with horror, he stared into the dusky hall.  The little oil lamps which hung on both sides of the door leading into the Electoral Prince’s apartments shed abroad only a glimmering, uncertain light, and left the background enveloped in gloom and obscurity.

All at once the soldier started:  he thought he saw a white figure emerge from the darkness.  Yes—­his eyes saw her, his ears heard her steps!

Yes, it was no illusion!  Ever nearer, ever larger loomed the white figure.  It was wholly enveloped in a veil and robe of white, and only two large, sparkling black eyes looked forth from the veil.  The soldier fell upon his knees, dropped his weapon, and, folding his hands, muttered with chattering teeth:  “The White Lady!  God Almighty be gracious to us!  The White Lady!”

He dared not look up; he only murmured in anguish of spirit the prayers by which spirits were exorcised; but he felt that the dreaded phantom came ever nearer and nearer—­that he could not exorcise the Lady in White!  Now she was close to him, her white garment grazed his bowed head, and the soldier shuddered and shrank within himself.  It was as if he heard a door creak and turn softly on its hinges, then all was still.

The soldier ventured to lift up his head a little—­the hall was empty, the Lady in White had vanished!  But she had been there; he had distinctly seen her; she had entered the Electoral Prince’s apartments; the soldier had plainly heard that!

Now an inexpressible horror, that was stronger than all discipline and sense of duty, seized him.  He rushed out of the hall, tore open the door opening upon the broad corridor, on both sides of which lay the apartments of their Electoral Highnesses.  With a loud scream he called out to the sentinel on guard there:  “The White Lady! the White Lady!”

This one, too, shrieked as loudly as if the apparition itself stood before him—­the Lady in White, known and dreaded of all!  And both soldiers, panicstricken, ran down the corridor to tell the news to the other sentinels, and throw them all into the same state of dread and consternation.