[They have killed my father and dishonoured his
body, cursed be your race! The blood of the Martyrs
rises to Heaven and demands justice. O my God!
with my last breath I invoke thy vengeance!]

His voice rang in my ears for long after
that night. As he stood there delivering that
wild malediction,  he looked a very prophet
from the wilderness. He did not speak for
some time, but remained with eyes upturned
to Heaven—as it seemed to me, praying.

"Ah! Messire de Beze—Messire de Beze!"
I muttered under my breath.

"Was she handsome?" I said, at last, to
break this depressing silence.

"Handsome!" he said, coming down again
to earth. "Handsome! I know not. There
is an old painting here," he continued, holding
up the lamp to the wall, "which they say
is meant for her; but who can tell?"

It was a faded, mouldering bit of canvas,
let in the wall, with a rent here and there;
yet the face and figure could be made out
perfectly—and a fair face it was: with her
golden hair falling round her to the ground,
She was kneeling; and, at her feet was a
sort of scroll, on which I could make out the
words, "How long, O Lord! how long!"

He had followed the direction of my eyes,
and saw that I was studying this mystic
device—"How long, O Lord!" I heard him
muttering softly to himself: and, before I
could address him, he had glided from the
room without a word.

I was alone at last, and I must confess felt
infinitely more at my ease now that I was
released from the presence of the grim
Huguenot. But the portrait and the strange
history connected with it,had completely upset me.
I would have given anything to have heard
more about it. And that desponding legend
underneath, significant of a world of patient
hope, suffering, and despair—I could not
get it out of my head. Such a fate for one
so young and beautiful—for one so——

Come, this will never do. If I let this go
on, I shall have no sleep to night, and
Heaven knows I want it.

When I sleep in strange places I always
have a fancy for learning all the details of the
whereabouts before I lie down. With this
view I went over to the large bow window, or
rather recess, for it enclosed a good portion of
the room; and, lifting aside the heavy curtains,
looked out. It was now near the middle of
night by the castle clock. The moon was up
and playing tranquilly upon the objects
outside, all whitened over with a film of frost.
There was a broad, old-fashioned garden just
below, upon which the cold pale light
streamed with wonderful effect, every line
being brought out with the distinctness of a
photograph. There were broad alleys,
marked out with some rugged yews that had
once known trimming; and there was a
shattered lion's-head, with a dry marble basin
underneath: the stream had ceased to gush
from the lion's mouth long ago—longer than
the memory of the most ancient inhabitant.
But what particularly attracted me was a
circular pond in the centre, with a battered
effigy of Regulus (in lead) rising in the
  middle—Regulus turning his sightless orbs
up in the white moonlight. Strange to say,
the water had remained unfrozen, and was
surging and eddying, from unknown depths.
I recollect how curiously its black turbid
surface contrasted with the snowy look of
everything round. It made me feel chilly
and uncomfortable to look at it. So I turned
away from the window, and set myself
seriously to the business of disrobing. Nor had
I much time to spare. The fire had nearly
died out, and the lamp was showing symptoms
of inanition.

It was certainly an awful-looking structure,
that antique bedstead. Four black pillars
shooting high in the air, and a dark mass of
draperies and carvings crowding all overhead.
Indeed, as it rose towering to the ceiling, it
reminded me of nothing so much as of a
catafalque—a plumed, ghostly catafalque.
A fanciful conceit, truly. But some way that
night I found myself tending towards a
strain of mortuary metaphor. However,
catafalque or no, I was very tired and
exhausted, and it was in a very placid state of
mind that I laid down my head upon the
pillow, and turned round to sleep.

My lamp, after many struggles with
approaching dissolution, had gone out with a
sudden start some minutes before. As it
shot up and flickered in its agony, my
catafalque was being exhibited on the wall beside
me in all sorts of queer shapes and spectral
elongations, which disturbed me somewhat
and gave me an uneasy feeling. So I was
very glad when it last gave up the ghost and
sank down into darkness most cimmerian.

Someway, with all my fatigue, I found
that sleep was not to be my portion—for
some time, at least. I had been thinking of
too many things; and these thoughts were
now rioting and jostling one another in my
unhappy brain, with activity most ill-
timed. Then, again, I wanted to get to sleep
—a state of mind, as everybody knows,
fatally subversive of the end intended. Every
incident of that weary day seemed to be
chasing each other through my head. The
yellow skull-like forehead and black piercing
eyes of the Huguenot landlord kept dancing
up and down before my eyes, shut them as
close as I would. Confused sounds as of
horns, with shouting in all its degrees, now
faint and musical as if afar off, now sharp
and acute, seemed ever rising from the
depths of the pillow, forcing the barriers of
my ears into the recesses of my bewildered
brain; while a monotonous buzzing sensation,
like the drone of a bagpipe, revived
once more the ceaseless rolling of the
diligence. Under such cruel torture, it is
nowise surprising that I soon reached the
tossing stage: and not long after found