“Nic—Nic!” exclaimed the doctor. “Look at me! Am I a corpse like you?”

      In fact they had both assumed a corpse-like look. Their faces were pallid, their eyes seemed to have gone, the orbits being apparently empty; their cheeks were greyish green, like the mosses which the legend says grow on the heads of those that are hanged.

      Nic Deck was astounded at what he saw, at what he heard. Doctor Patak was in the last stage of fright; his muscles retracted, his skin bristled, his pupils dilated, his body was seized with tetanic rigidity. As the poet of the “Contemplations” remarks, “he breathed in terror.”

      A minute—a minute or more—lasted this terrifying phenomenon. Then the strange light gradually went out, the groaning ceased, and the Orgall plateau resumed its silence and obscurity.

      Neither of the men thought any more of sleep. The doctor overwhelmed with stupor, the forester upright against the stone seat, awaited the return of the dawn.

      What did Nic Deck think of these things, which were evidently so supernatural to his eyes? Were they not enough to shake his resolution? Did he still intend to pursue this reckless adventure?

      Certainly he had said that he would enter the castle, that he would explore the donjon. But was it not enough for him to have come to its insurmountable wall, to have evoked the anger of its guardian spirits, and provoked this trouble of the elements? Would he be reproached with not having kept to his promise if he returned to the village without having urged his folly to the end in entering this diabolic castle?

      Suddenly the doctor threw himself upon him, seized him by the hand, and strove to drag him away, saying in a hoarse voice, “Come! come!”

      “No!” said Nic Deck.

      And in turn he caught hold of Doctor Patak, who fell at this last effort.

      At last the night ended, and such was their mental state that neither forester nor doctor knew the time that elapsed until daybreak. They remembered nothing of the hours which preceded the first rays of the morning.

      At that moment a rosy streak appeared on the crest of Paring, on the eastern horizon, on the other side of the valley of the two Syls. The faint white rays of dawn dispersed over the depth of the sky, and striped it as if it were a zebra-skin.

      Nic Deck turned towards the castle. He saw it grow clearer and clearer: the donjon revealed itself from the high mists which came floating down the Vulkan slope; the chapel, the galleries, the outer walls emerged from the nocturnal mists; and there on the corner bastion appeared the beech-tree, with its leaves rustling in the easterly breeze.

      There was no change in the ordinary aspect of the castle. The bell was as motionless as the old feudal weather-vane. No smoke arose from the donjon chimneys, and the barred windows remained obstinately closed.

      Above the platform, in the higher zones of the sky, a few birds were flying and gently calling to each other.

      Nic Deck turned to look at the principal entrance to the castle. The drawbridge up against the bay closed the postern between the two stone pillars which bore the arms of the barons of Gortz.

      Had the forester resolved to continue this adventurous expedition to the end? Yes; and his resolution had not been shaken by the events of the night. A thing said was a thing done—that was his motto as we know. Neither the mysterious voice which had threatened him personally in the saloon of the “King Mathias,” nor the inexplicable phenomenon of sound and light he had just witnessed, would stop him from entering the castle. An hour would be enough for him to hurry through the galleries, visit the keep, and then, having fulfilled his promise, he would return to Werst, where he would arrive during the morning.

      As to Doctor Patak, he was now only an inert machine, without either the strength to resist or to insist. He would go where he was driven. If he fell, it would be impossible to lift him again. The terrors of the night had reduced him to complete imbecility, and he made no observation when the forester pointed to the castle and said,—

      “Come on!”

      And yet the day had returned, and the doctor could have got back to Werst without fear of losing himself in the Plesa forests. He had no reason to wish to remain with Nic Deck, and if he did not abandon his companion to return to the village, it was that he was no longer conscious of the state of affairs, and was merely a body without a mind. And so when the forester dragged him towards the slope of the counterscarp he made no resistance.

      But was it possible to enter the castle otherwise than by the gate? That was what Nic Deck endeavoured to discover.

      The wall showed no breach, no falling in, no excavation, giving access to the interior. It was indeed surprising that these old walls were in such a state of preservation, but this was doubtless due to their thickness. To climb to the line of crenellations which crowned them appeared to be impracticable, as they rose some forty feet above the ditch. And it seemed as though Nic Deck, at the very moment of reaching the Castle of the Carpathians, was to fail owing to insurmountable obstacles.

      Fortunately—or very unfortunately for him—there stood above the postern a sort of loophole, or rather an embrasure, through which formerly pointed the muzzle of a culverin. By making use of one of the chains of the drawbridge which hung down to the ground, it would not be very difficult for an active, vigorous man to hoist himself up to this embrasure. Its width was sufficient to allow of a man to pass, unless it was barred on the inside, and Nic Deck could probably manage to get through it within the castle wall.

      The forester saw at once that this was the only way open to him, and that is why, followed by the unconscious doctor, he went obliquely down the inner slope of the counterscarp.