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rejoiced to see within a well-lit room in which a table was spread for
supper, and on whose mighty hearth a great fire of logs, freshly
replenished, flamed and flared.

The Count halted, putting down my bags, closed the door, and crossing
the room, opened another door, which led into a small octagonal room
lit by a single lamp, and seemingly without a window of any sort.
Passing through this, he opened another door, and motioned me to
enter.  It was a welcome sight.  For here was a great bedroom well
lighted and warmed with another log fire, also added to but lately,
for the top logs were fresh, which sent a hollow roar up the wide
chimney.  The Count himself left my luggage inside and withdrew,
saying, before he closed the door.

"You will need, after your journey, to refresh yourself by making your
toilet.  I trust you will find all you wish.  When you are ready, come
into the other room, where you will find your supper prepared."

The light and warmth and the Count's courteous welcome seemed to have
dissipated all my doubts and fears.  Having then reached my normal
state, I discovered that I was half famished with hunger.  So making a
hasty toilet, I went into the other room.

I found supper already laid out.  My host, who stood on one side of
the great fireplace, leaning against the stonework, made a graceful
wave of his hand to the table, and said,

"I pray you, be seated and sup how you please.  You will I trust,
excuse me that I do not join you, but I have dined already, and I do
not sup."

I handed to him the sealed letter which Mr. Hawkins had entrusted to
me.  He opened it and read it gravely.  Then, with a charming smile,
he handed it to me to read.  One passage of it, at least, gave me a
thrill of pleasure.

"I must regret that an attack of gout, from which malady I am a
constant sufferer, forbids absolutely any travelling on my part for
some time to come.  But I am happy to say I can send a sufficient
substitute, one in whom I have every possible confidence.  He is a
young man, full of energy and talent in his own way, and of a very
faithful disposition.  He is discreet and silent, and has grown into
manhood in my service.  He shall be ready to attend on you when you
will during his stay, and shall take your instructions in all
matters."

The count himself came forward and took off the cover of a dish, and I
fell to at once on an excellent roast chicken.  This, with some cheese
and a salad and a bottle of old tokay, of which I had two glasses, was
my supper.  During the time I was eating it the Count asked me many
questions as to my journey, and I told him by degrees all I had
experienced.

By this time I had finished my supper, and by my host's desire had
drawn up a chair by the fire and begun to smoke a cigar which he
offered me, at the same time excusing himself that he did not smoke.
I had now an opportunity of observing him, and found him of a very
marked physiognomy.

His face was a strong, a very strong, aquiline, with high bridge of
the thin nose and peculiarly arched nostrils, with lofty domed
forehead, and hair growing scantily round the temples but profusely
elsewhere.  His eyebrows were very massive, almost meeting over the
nose, and with bushy hair that seemed to curl in its own profusion.
The mouth, so far as I could see it under the heavy moustache, was
fixed and rather cruel-looking, with peculiarly sharp white teeth.
These protruded over the lips, whose remarkable ruddiness showed
astonishing vitality in a man of his years.  For the rest, his ears
were pale, and at the tops extremely pointed.  The chin was broad and
strong, and the cheeks firm though thin.  The general effect was one
of extraordinary pallor.

Hitherto I had noticed the backs of his hands as they lay on his knees
in the firelight, and they had seemed rather white and fine.  But
seeing them now close to me, I could not but notice that they were
rather coarse, broad, with squat fingers.  Strange to say, there were
hairs in the centre of the palm.  The nails were long and fine, and
cut to a sharp point.  As the Count leaned over me and his hands
touched me, I could not repress a shudder.  It may have been that his
breath was rank, but a horrible feeling of nausea came over me, which,
do what I would, I could not conceal.

The Count, evidently noticing it, drew back.  And with a grim sort of
smile, which showed more than he had yet done his protruberant teeth,
sat himself down again on his own side of the fireplace.  We were both
silent for a while, and as I looked towards the window I saw the first
dim streak of the coming dawn.  There seemed a strange stillness over
everything.  But as I listened, I heard as if from down below in the
valley the howling of many wolves.  The Count's eyes gleamed, and he
said.

"Listen to them, the children of the night.  What music they make!"
Seeing, I suppose, some expression in my face strange to him, he
added, "Ah, sir, you dwellers in the city cannot enter into the
feelings of the hunter."  Then he rose and said.

"But you must be tired.  Your bedroom is all ready, and tomorrow you
shall sleep as late as you will.  I have to be away till the
afternoon, so sleep well and dream well!"  With a courteous bow, he
opened for me himself the door to the octagonal room, and I entered my
bedroom.

I am all in a sea of wonders.  I doubt.  I fear.  I think strange
things, which I dare not confess to my own soul.  God keep me, if only
for the sake of those dear to me!


7 May.--It is again early morning, but I have rested and enjoyed the
last twenty-four hours.  I slept till late in the day, and awoke of my
own accord.  When I had dressed myself I went into the room where we
had supped, and found a cold breakfast laid out, with coffee kept hot
by the pot being placed on the hearth.  There was a card on the table,
on which was written--"I have to be absent for a while.  Do not wait
for me.  D."  I set to and enjoyed a hearty meal.  When I had done, I
looked for a bell, so that I might let the servants know I had
finished, but I could not find one.  There are certainly odd
deficiencies in the house, considering the extraordinary evidences of
wealth which are round me.  The table service is of gold, and so
beautifully wrought that it must be of immense value.  The curtains
and upholstery of the chairs and sofas and the hangings of my bed are
of the costliest and most beautiful fabrics, and must have been of
fabulous value when they were made, for they are centuries old, though
in excellent order.  I saw something like them in Hampton Court, but
they were worn and frayed and moth-eaten.  But still in none of the
rooms is there a mirror.  There is not even a toilet glass on my
table, and I had to get the little shaving glass from my bag before I
could either shave or brush my hair.  I have not yet seen a servant
anywhere, or heard a sound near the castle except the howling of
wolves.  Some time after I had finished my meal, I do not know whether
to call it breakfast or dinner, for it was between five and six
o'clock when I had it, I looked about for something to read, for I did
not like to go about the castle until I had asked the Count's
permission.  There was absolutely nothing in the room, book,
newspaper, or even writing materials, so I opened another door in the
room and found a sort of library.  The door opposite mine I tried, but
found locked.

In the library I found, to my great delight, a vast number of English
books, whole shelves full of them, and bound volumes of magazines and
newspapers.  A table in the centre was littered with English magazines
and newspapers, though none of them were of very recent date.  The
books were of the most varied kind, history, geography, politics,
political economy, botany, geology, law, all relating to England and
English life and customs and manners.  There were even such books of
reference as the London Directory, the "Red" and "Blue" books,
Whitaker's Almanac, the Army and Navy Lists, and it somehow gladdened
my heart to see it, the Law List.

Whilst I was looking at the books, the door opened, and the Count
entered.  He saluted me in a hearty way, and hoped that I had had a
good night's rest.  Then he went on.

"I am glad you found your way in here, for I am sure there is much
that will interest you.  These companions," and he laid his hand on
some of the books, "have been good friends to me, and for some years
past, ever since I had the idea of going to London, have given me
many, many hours of pleasure.  Through them I have come to know your
great England, and to know her is to love her.  I long to go through
the crowded streets of your mighty London, to be in the midst of the
whirl and rush of humanity, to share its life, its change, its death,
and all that makes it what it is.  But alas!  As yet I only know your
tongue through books.  To you, my friend, I look that I know it to
speak."

"But, Count," I said, "You know and speak English thoroughly!"  He
bowed gravely.

"I thank you, my friend, for your all too-flattering estimate, but yet
I fear that I am but a little way on the road I would travel.  True, I
know the grammar and the words, but yet I know not how to speak them."

"Indeed," I said, "You speak excellently."

"Not so," he answered.  "Well, I know that, did I move and speak in
your London, none there are who would not know me for a stranger.  That
is not enough for me.  Here I am noble.  I am a Boyar.  The common
people know me, and I am master.  But a stranger in a strange land, he
is no one.  Men know him not, and to know not is to care not for.  I
am content if I am like the rest, so that no man stops if he sees me,
or pauses in his speaking if he hears my words, 'Ha, ha!  A stranger!'
I have been so long master that I would be master still, or at least
that none other should be master of me.  You come to me not alone as
agent of my friend Peter Hawkins, of Exeter, to tell me all about my
new estate in London.  You shall, I trust, rest here with me a while,
so that by our talking I may learn the English intonation.  And I
would that you tell me when I make error, even of the smallest, in my
speaking.  I am sorry that I had to be away so long today, but you
will, I know forgive one who has so many important affairs in hand."

Of course I said all I could about being willing, and asked if I might
come into that room when I chose.  He answered, "Yes, certainly," and
added.

"You may go anywhere you wish in the castle, except where the doors
are locked, where of course you will not wish to go.  There is reason
that all things are as they are, and did you see with my eyes and know
with my knowledge, you would perhaps better understand."  I said I was
sure of this, and then he went on.

"We are in Transylvania, and Transylvania is not England.  Our ways
are not your ways, and there shall be to you many strange things.  Nay,
from what you have told me of your experiences already, you know
something of what strange things there may be."

This led to much conversation, and as it was evident that he wanted to
talk, if only for talking's sake, I asked him many questions regarding
things that had already happened to me or come within my notice.
Sometimes he sheered off the subject, or turned the conversation by
pretending not to understand, but generally he answered all I asked
most frankly.  Then as time went on, and I had got somewhat bolder, I
asked him of some of the strange things of the preceding night, as for
instance, why the coachman went to the places where he had seen the
blue flames.  He then explained to me that it was commonly believed
that on a certain night of the year, last night, in fact, when all
evil spirits are supposed to have unchecked sway, a blue flame is seen
over any place where treasure has been concealed.

"That treasure has been hidden," he went on, "in the region through
which you came last night, there can be but little doubt.  For it was
the ground fought over for centuries by the Wallachian, the Saxon, and
the Turk.  Why, there is hardly a foot of soil in all this region that
has not been enriched by the blood of men, patriots or invaders.  In
the old days there were stirring times, when the Austrian and the
Hungarian came up in hordes, and the patriots went out to meet them,
men and women, the aged and the children too, and waited their coming
on the rocks above the passes, that they might sweep destruction on
them with their artificial avalanches.  When the invader was
triumphant he found but little, for whatever there was had been
sheltered in the friendly soil."

"But how," said I, "can it have remained so long undiscovered, when
there is a sure index to it if men will but take the trouble to look?"
The Count smiled, and as his lips ran back over his gums, the long,
sharp, canine teeth showed out strangely.  He answered:

"Because your peasant is at heart a coward and a fool!  Those flames
only appear on one night, and on that night no man of this land will,
if he can help it, stir without his doors.  And, dear sir, even if he
did he would not know what to do.  Why, even the peasant that you tell
me of who marked the place of the flame would not know where to look
in daylight even for his own work.  Even you would not, I dare be
sworn, be able to find these places again?"

"There you are right," I said.  "I know no more than the dead where
even to look for them."  Then we drifted into other matters.