I was tempted to get out of bed, to open
the casement and let in the fresh morning
air. but did not. Looking, however, in that
direction, which was also towards the foot
of my bed, I saw a man in his shirt and
trowsers and white nightcap, of the peculiar
height and build of my landlord, pass in the
yard before my window, as if going to the
granary steps. It was nothing extraordinary
that a farming innkeeper should rise at three
in the morning, to look after his affairs.
Some live stock, perhaps, required his attention.
I lay motionless on my back, wondering
how soon Jules would come, and hesitating
whether or not to court the morning doze,
which is often the most delightful part of a
whole night's rest.

I have the habit, in summer, of sleeping
with my eyes covered, and sometimes bandaged,
with a silk handkerchief, to do what eyelids
cannot then do, namely, exclude the bright
beams of the newly-risen sun, I was now
blindfolded with no thicker covering than the
simple screen of well-worn lawn, as thin as
muslin, afforded by an old and treasured
white pocket-handkerchief. It was, in fact,
for want of another which I had left in my
carpet-bag, nothing more than a transparent
veil; and through it I was amusing myself
with gazing at the planks of the ceiling overhead.
A crack caught my eye; while looking
at it, it became wider—and wider still! till
an oblong hole, the breadth of the entire
plank, was opened into the granary above.
The sliding portion of floor had been pushed
back so noiselessly, that I should not have
been aware of it though wide awake, had I
not happened to be staring straight at the
very spot. At this hole, my landlord's face
soon appeared, gazing intently down upon me.
My veil prevented his seeing that he was seen,
and I took care to simulate sound sleep in my
breathing. His eyes glittered for a second or
two, as he grinned with satisfaction, and
smoothly closed the slide again.

"Heaven! what does this mean"? What
shall I do?" Before I had answered the
question to myself, I had jumped out of
bed, and dressed my self with a rapidity which
was anything but habitual. My landlord
passed the window again, in the direction of
the house. Odd, that he never looked in, to see
how matters stood, if he meant any harm! I
don't even now know why I acted as I then did.
Instinct during danger sometimes fulfils the
office of reflection, bestows presence of mind,
and takes the place of the inventive faculties.
I snatched the nightcap off my head, pulled it
tightly over one corner of the pillow, made a
sort of neck, by means of a ligature of string
—one of the pieces I had in my pocket—
fastened to the lower end of the pillow another
piece of string, which I passed under
the sheets, to the foot of the bed, behind the
scant curtain, and there took my station, after
fashioning the effigy, as much as I could, to
the likeness of a sleeping man.

A minute sufficed to look around me, and
measure the difficulties of my position. What
had seemed so plain and simple overnight,
now bore strong symptoms of being a cut-
throatly trap. The treacherous peep-hole in
the ceiling was bad enough, even if it were
made only for the purposes of peeping and
listening. A man's chamber in an inn ought
to be his castle, so long as he does not set fire
to the house; and an honest innkeeper,
receiving honest guests, is bound so to consider
it. But here the very circumstances that
would be expected to insure safety—although
they rather ran counter to the possibility of
privacy—were converted to the very opposite
object. The position of the room on the
ground floor, and the window at each end,
giving a thorough light, would lull all suspicion
of evil intentions which might arise in the
thoughts of a nervous tourist. No one could
dream of being murdered almost in public.
But, on the floor of the room, exactly at one
corner, beneath the window which looked
into a little back yard, the light streamed
in through an aperture in the wall, which
might have been taken for a small rat-hole.
It would occur to any one, that such an
unnecessary opening must admit a strong draught
of cold air in winter time. It struck me that
the whole floor sloped slightly in that direction,
and that there was a perceptible channel
leading towards it, by means of which arrangement
the apartment could be thoroughly and
rapidly washed out, the washings being
received on a spot to which nobody but the
inmates of the house had access. Again;
the wall of partition of the stable, against
which the bed was placed, was composed of the
mud and wood structure so common in the
cottages hereabouts. Well; on inspecting
the wall below the level of the mattrass on
which I had slept, I perceived that a large
empty space had been left, and merely filled
up temporarily with sticks, straw, stones, and
rubbish; so that by merely hitching the
bedstead a little forward into the room, anything
not exceeding the size of a full-grown man
could easily be shoved away through the gap,
into the stable, and carried off at leisure,
without a single person in the house being a
bit the wiser for the matter. What could I
conclude from all these details? I had seen,
not long since, the dungeons, the chambers of
torture, the dry wells with what sounded like
bones at the bottom when a pebble was cast
down upon them, with a secret door leading
from the torture-room to the mouth of the
well;—all this I had seen at Tancarville
Castle, on the Seine; and had thence, I think
reasonably, concluded that torture, and murder,
and secret disposal of corpses had been
done there. Now, there were before my view so
many means of evil practices combined, that
I could not doubt that evil was intended, and
had been perpetrated, before my chance arrival.

But, I had no long time left me to speculate
in. The slide again opened, and through it