“Well, well,” said Emily, impatiently, and anxious to enquire on another subject—“so he locked you up?”
“Yes, he did indeed, ma’amselle, notwithstanding all I could say to the contrary; and Caterina and I and he stayed there all night. And in a few minutes after I was not so vexed, for there came Signor Verezzi roaring along the passage, like a mad bull, and he mistook Ludovico’s hall, for old Carlo’s; so he tried to burst open the door, and called out for more wine, for that he had drunk all the flasks dry, and was dying of thirst. So we were all as still as night, that he might suppose there was nobody in the room; but the Signor was as cunning as the best of us, and kept calling out at the door, ‘Come forth, my ancient hero!’ said he, ‘here is no enemy at the gate, that you need hide yourself: come forth, my valorous Signor Steward!’ Just then old Carlo opened his door, and he came with a flask in his hand; for, as soon as the Signor saw him, he was as tame as could be, and followed him away as naturally as a dog does a butcher with a piece of meat in his basket. All this I saw through the keyhole. ‘Well, Annette,’ said Ludovico, jeeringly, ‘shall I let you out now?’ ‘O no,’ says I, ‘I would not—’ ”
“I have some questions to ask you on another subject,” interrupted Emily, quite wearied by this story. “Do you know whether there are any prisoners in the castle, and whether they are confined at this end of the edifice?”
“I was not in the way, ma’amselle,” replied Annette, “when the first party came in from the mountains, and the last party is not come back yet, so I don’t know, whether there are any prisoners; but it is expected back tonight, or tomorrow, and I shall know then, perhaps.”
Emily enquired if she had ever heard the servants talk of prisoners.
“Ah ma’amselle!” said Annette archly, “now I dare say you are thinking of Monsieur Valancourt, and that he may have come among the armies, which, they say, are come from our country, to fight against this state, and that he has met with some of our people, and is taken captive. O Lord! how glad I should be, if it was so!”
“Would you, indeed, be glad?” said Emily, in a tone of mournful reproach.
“To be sure I should, ma’am,” replied Annette, “and would not you be glad too, to see Signor Valancourt? I don’t know any chevalier I like better, I have a very great regard for the Signor, truly.”
“Your regard for him cannot be doubted,” said Emily, “since you wish to see him a prisoner.”
“Why no, ma’amselle, not a prisoner either; but one must be glad to see him, you know. And it was only the other night I dreamt—I dreamt I saw him drive into the castle-yard all in a coach and six, and dressed out, with a laced coat and a sword, like a lord as he is.”
Emily could not forbear smiling at Annette’s ideas of Valancourt, and repeated her enquiry, whether she had heard the servants talk of prisoners.
“No, ma’amselle,” replied she, “never; and lately they have done nothing but talk of the apparition, that has been walking about of a night on the ramparts, and that frightened the sentinels into fits. It came among them like a flash of fire, they say, and they all fell down in a row, till they came to themselves again; and then it was gone, and nothing to be seen but the old castle walls; so they helped one another up again as fast as they could. You would not believe, ma’amselle, though I showed you the very cannon, where it used to appear.”
“And are you, indeed, so simple, Annette,” said Emily, smiling at this curious exaggeration of the circumstances she had witnessed, “as to credit these stories?”
“Credit them, ma’amselle! why all the world could not persuade me out of them. Roberto and Sebastian and half a dozen more of them went into fits! To be sure, there was no occasion for that; I said, myself, there was no need of that, for, says I, when the enemy comes, what a pretty figure they will cut, if they are to fall down in fits, all of a row! The enemy won’t be so civil, perhaps, as to walk off, like the ghost, and leave them to help one another up, but will fall to, cutting and slashing, till he makes them all rise up dead men. No, no, says I, there is reason in all things: though I might have fallen down in a fit that was no rule for them, being, because it is no business of mine to look gruff, and fight battles.”
Emily endeavoured to correct the superstitious weakness of Annette, though she could not entirely subdue her own; to which the latter only replied, “Nay, ma’amselle, you will believe nothing; you are almost as bad as the Signor himself, who was in a great passion when they told of what had happened, and swore that the first man, who repeated such nonsense, should be thrown into the dungeon under the east turret. This was a hard punishment too, for only talking nonsense, as he called it, but I dare say he had other reasons for calling it so, than you have, ma’am.”
Emily looked displeased, and made no reply. As she mused upon the recollected appearance, which had lately so much alarmed her, and considered the circumstances of the figure having stationed itself opposite to her casement, she was for a moment inclined to believe it was Valancourt, whom she had seen. Yet, if it was he, why did he not speak to her, when he had the opportunity of doing so—and, if he was a prisoner in the castle, and
