He trembled, not from any superstitious dread, but from an undefined sense of approaching danger.

The peculiar appearance of the sky was not without some influence in awakening these terrors.

Over one of the pinnacles of the tower a speck of pallid light marked the position of the moon, then newly born and newly risen.

It was still profoundly dark; but the wind, which had begun to blow with some violence, chased the clouds rapidly across the heavens, and dispersed the vapours hanging nearer the earth.

Sometimes the moon was totally eclipsed; at others, it shed a wan and ghastly glimmer over the masses rolling in the firmament.