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looking, and it could be no delusion. I saw the fingers and toes
grasp the corners of the stones, worn clear of the mortar by the
stress of years, and by thus using every projection and inequality
move downwards with considerable speed, just as a lizard moves along a
wall.

What manner of man is this, or what manner of creature, is it in the
semblance of man? I feel the dread of this horrible place
overpowering me. I am in fear, in awful fear, and there is no escape
for me. I am encompassed about with terrors that I dare not think of.


15 May.--Once more I have seen the count go out in his lizard fashion.
He moved downwards in a sidelong way, some hundred feet down, and a
good deal to the left. He vanished into some hole or window. When
his head had disappeared, I leaned out to try and see more, but
without avail. The distance was too great to allow a proper angle of
sight. I knew he had left the castle now, and thought to use the
opportunity to explore more than I had dared to do as yet. I went
back to the room, and taking a lamp, tried all the doors. They were
all locked, as I had expected, and the locks were comparatively new.
But I went down the stone stairs to the hall where I had entered
originally. I found I could pull back the bolts easily enough and
unhook the great chains. But the door was locked, and the key was
gone! That key must be in the Count's room. I must watch should his
door be unlocked, so that I may get it and escape. I went on to make
a thorough examination of the various stairs and passages, and to try
the doors that opened from them. One or two small rooms near the hall
were open, but there was nothing to see in them except old furniture,
dusty with age and moth-eaten. At last, however, I found one door at
the top of the stairway which, though it seemed locked, gave a little
under pressure. I tried it harder, and found that it was not really
locked, but that the resistance came from the fact that the hinges had
fallen somewhat, and the heavy door rested on the floor. Here was an
opportunity which I might not have again, so I exerted myself, and
with many efforts forced it back so that I could enter. I was now in
a wing of the castle further to the right than the rooms I knew and a
storey lower down. From the windows I could see that the suite of
rooms lay along to the south of the castle, the windows of the end
room looking out both west and south. On the latter side, as well as
to the former, there was a great precipice. The castle was built on
the corner of a great rock, so that on three sides it was quite
impregnable, and great windows were placed here where sling, or bow,
or culverin could not reach, and consequently light and comfort,
impossible to a position which had to be guarded, were secured. To
the west was a great valley, and then, rising far away, great jagged
mountain fastnesses, rising peak on peak, the sheer rock studded with
mountain ash and thorn, whose roots clung in cracks and crevices and
crannies of the stone. This was evidently the portion of the castle

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