This was all so strange and uncanny that a dreadful fear came upon me, and I was afraid to speak or move.

The time seemed interminable as we swept on our way, now in almost complete darkness, for the rolling clouds obscured the moon.
We kept on ascending, with occasional periods of quick descent, but in the main always ascending.

Suddenly, I became conscious of the fact that the driver was in the act of pulling up the horses in the courtyard of a vast ruined castle, from whose tall black windows came no ray of light, and whose broken battlements showed a jagged line against the sky..