The air of the place was as that of some gigantic sepulchre.
A little daunted by this all-enveloping stillness, I skirted the terraces and approached the house on the eastern side.

Here I found an old-world drawbridge--now naturally in disuse--spanning a ditch fed from the main river for the erstwhile purposes of a moat.

I crossed the bridge, and entered an imposing courtyard.

Within this quadrangle the same silence dwelt, and there was the same obscurity in the windows that overlooked it.

I paused, at a loss how to proceed, and I leaned against a buttress of the portcullis, what time I considered.
I was weak from fasting, worn with hard riding, and faint from the wound in my shoulder, which had been the cause at least of my losing some blood.