It was
no wonder that his condition terrified-that it infected me. I felt
creeping upon me, by slow yet certain degrees, the wild influences
of his own fantastic yet impressive superstitions.
It was, especially, upon retiring to bed late in the night of the
seventh or eighth day after the placing of the lady Madeline within
the donjon, that I experienced the full power of such feelings.
Sleep came not near my couch --while the hours waned and waned away. I
struggled to reason off the nervousness which had dominion over me.
I endeavoured to believe that much, if not all of what I felt, was due
to the bewildering influence of the gloomy furniture of the room
--of the dark and tattered draperies, which, tortured into motion by
the breath of a rising tempest, swayed fitfully to and fro upon the
walls, and rustled uneasily about the decorations of the bed. But my
efforts were fruitless. An irrepressible tremour gradually pervaded my
frame; and, at length, there sat upon my very heart an incubus of
utterly causeless alarm. Shaking this off with a gasp and a
struggle, I uplifted myself upon the pillows, and, peering earnestly
within the intense darkness of the chamber, hearkened --I know not
why, except that an instinctive spirit prompted me --to certain low
and indefinite sounds which came, through the pauses of the storm,
at long intervals, I knew not whence.
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