I too determined to quit this nest of horrors, for my very life appeared in danger; so, rising, I began to grope my way towards the door, when I fell over something that lay on the ground, and as I put out my hand, I touched (Oh, horrible!) a dead, cold, damp human face. Instantly the thought struck me that this was one of the four whom the ruffians had murdered, and I flung myself from it, with a shiver of horror; but in doing so, laid my hand on another face; while a faint gleam of lightning that flashed at the moment shewed me two bodies, pale, ghastly, naked, and half covered with straw.
I started up, screaming, and made a desperate effort to reach the door; but just as I was darting out of it, I found my shoulder seized with a ferocious grasp.
'I have caught one of them,' cried the person. 'Fetch the lantern.'
'I am innocent of the murder!' cried I. 'I swear to you that I am. They did not fall by my dagger, I can assure you.'
'Who? what murder?' cried he. 'Hollo, help! here is a murder committed.'
'Not by me!' cried I. 'Not by me, not by me! No, no, no, my hands are unstained with their blood.'
And now a lantern being brought, I perceived several servants in liveries, who first examined my features, and then dragged me back into the building, while they searched there for some poachers, whom they had been way-laying when they found me. The building! And what was the building, think you? Why nothing more than the shell of an unfinished house,—a mere modern morsel of a tasteless temple! And what were the banditti who had knocked me down, think you? Why nothing more than a few harmless sheep, that now lay huddled together in a corner! And what were the two corpses, think you? Why nothing more than two Heathen statues for the little temple!—And the ruffians that talked of their having killed, and having to kill, were only the poachers, who had killed four hares! Here then was the whole mystery developed, and a great deal of good fright gone for nothing.
However, some trouble still remained to me. The servants, swearing that I was either concerned with the poachers, or in some murder, dragged me down a shrubbery, till we reached a large mansion. We then entered a lighted hall: one of them went to call his master, and after a few minutes, an elderly gentleman, with a troop of young men and women at his heels, came out of a parlour.
'Is that the murderess? What a young murderess! I never saw a murderess before!' was whispered about by the ladies.
'What murder is this you were talking of, young woman?' said the gentleman to me.