at least, there really was some peril in this undertaking; and their imagination had free course to wander in the most fearful regions of the world of spirits. But as they could not refuse the Baron’s proposal without declaring their previous boldness to be mere idle boasting, they reasserted their willingness to risk the adventure.
“I expected this firmness from you,” said Bentheim; “but do not imagine your enterprise to be unimportant. I fear that you may this night be compelled to encounter sights which pass human understanding. Prepare, therefore, to meet with intrepidity whatever awaits you. I repeat to you, that I know nothing myself of the appalling secrets of that room; for I, as well as my parents, were solemnly enjoined by our ancestors, never to enter it; and the General, as you are already aware, never revealed to any one what he saw within it.”
Much conversation followed; but nothing tending to throw any light on the affair.
At supper, the Baron was unusually gloomy and taciturn. He drank no wine himself; and advised us to be equally abstinent, or at least to postpone our indulgence in it until the time for our vigils arrived; when, he added impressively, we might be found to need its sustaining power. Shortly afterwards, we all repaired to the celebrated chamber.
Here were evident traces of desolation; and the difference between this room and that in which we had slept the night before, was most striking.
A modern table, and three new chairs, which had been brought into the room for the three guests, formed a disagreeable contrast to the rest of the antiquated, mouldering furniture, and still further heightened the general aspect of decay. In the recess of a walled-up gothic window there stood an altar of ancient architecture, richly carved with figures of saints. There was only one other window in the room, whence nothing was
