The light quickly disappeared, and he heard the door that opened upon
the tower suddenly close. He reached it, and forcing it open, sprang
forward; but the place was dark and solitary, and there was no
appearance of any person having passed along it. He looked up the
tower, and the chasm which the stair-case exhibited, convinced him
that no human being could have passed up. He stood silent and amazed;
examining the place with an eye of strict enquiry, he perceived a
door, which was partly concealed by hanging stairs, and which till now
had escaped his notice. Hope invigorated curiosity, but his
expectation was quickly disappointed, for this door also was fastened.
He tried in vain to force it. He knocked, and a hollow sullen sound
ran in echoes through the place, and died away at a distance. It was
evident that beyond this door were chambers of considerable extent,
but after long and various attempts to reach them, he was obliged to
desist, and he quitted the tower as ignorant and more dissatisfied
than he had entered it.
He returned to the hall, which he now for the
first time deliberately surveyed. It was a spacious and desolate
apartment, whose lofty roof rose into arches supported by pillars of
black marble. The same substance inlaid the floor, and formed the
stair-case. The windows were high and gothic. An air of proud
sublimity, united with singular wildness, characterized the place, at
the extremity of which arose several gothic arches, whose dark shade
veiled in obscurity the extent beyond. On the left hand appeared two
doors, each of which was fastened, and on the right the grand entrance
from the courts. Ferdinand determined to explore the dark recess which
terminated his view, and as he traversed the hall, his imagination,
affected by the surrounding scene, often multiplied the echoes of his
footsteps into uncertain sounds of strange and fearful import.
He reached the arches, and discovered beyond a kind of inner hall, of
considerable extent, which was closed at the farther end by a pair of
massy folding-doors, heavily ornamented with carving. They were
fastened by a lock, and defied his utmost strength.
As he surveyed the place in silent wonder, a sullen groan arose from
beneath the spot where he stood. His blood ran cold at the sound, but
silence returning, and continuing unbroken, he attributed his alarm to
the illusion of a fancy, which terror had impregnated. He made another
effort to force the door, when a groan was repeated more hollow, and
more dreadful than the first. At this moment all his courage forsook
him; he quitted the door, and hastened to the stair-case, which he
ascended almost breathless with terror.