CHARLES. There's some mystery here—Out with it! Speak! I must know all.
VOICE (from the castle). Woe! woe! Is it you, Hermann, that are speaking? To whom are you speaking, Hermann?
CHARLES. Some one else down there? What is the meaning of all this? (Runs towards the castle.) It is some prisoner whom mankind have cast off! I will loosen his chains. Voice! Speak! Where is the door?
HERMANN. Oh, have mercy, sir—seek no further, I entreat—for mercy's sake desist! (He stops his way.)
CHARLES. Locks, bolts, and bars, away! It must come out. Now, for the first time, come to my aid, thief-craft! (He opens the grated iron door with, housebreaking tools. An OLD MAN, reduced to a skeleton, comes up from below.)
THE OLD MAN. Mercy on a poor wretch! Mercy!
CHARLES (starts back in terror). That is my father's voice!
OLD MOOR. I thank thee, merciful Heaven! The hour of deliverance has arrived.
CHARLES. Shade of the aged Moor! what has disturbed thee in thy grave? Has thy soul left this earth charged with some foul crime that bars the gates of Paradise against thee? Say?—I will have masses read, to send thy wandering spirit to its home. Hast thou buried in the earth the gold of widows and orphans, that thou art driven to wander howling through the midnight hour? I will snatch the hidden treasure from the clutches of the infernal dragon, though he should vomit a thousand redhot flames upon me, and gnash his sharp teeth against my sword. Or comest thou, at my request, to reveal to me the mysteries of eternity? Speak, thou! speak! I am not the man to blanch with fear!
OLD MOOR. I am not a spirit. Touch me—I live but oh! a life indeed of misery!