But in the darkness I upset a chair, which made a tremendous crash.
In an instant all was profound silence outside. I listened behind the
table, staring at the door as if I could pierce it with my eyes, which
felt as if they were starting from my head. When I had kept so quiet
for a while that the buzzing of a fly could have been plainly heard,
I distinguished the sound of a key softly put into the keyhole of my
door on the outside. I was just about to make a demonstration with my
table, when the key was turned slowly three times round in the lock,
and then cautiously withdrawn, after which the footsteps retreated
along the passage and down the staircase.
I took a long breath. "Oho!" I thought, "they have locked me up that
all may be easy when I am sound asleep." I tried the door, and found
it locked, as was also the other door, behind which the pale maid
slept. This had never been so before since I had been at the castle.
Here was I imprisoned in a foreign land! The Lady fair undoubtedly was
even now standing at her window and looking across the quiet garden
toward the high-road, to see if I were not coming from the toll-house
with my fiddle. The clouds were scudding across the sky; time was
passing--and I could not get away. Ah, but my heart was sore; I did
not know what to do. And if the leaves rustled outside, or a rat
gnawed behind the wainscot, I fancied I saw the old woman gliding in
by a secret door and creeping softly through the room, with that long
knife in hand.
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