vercame me. Kill me, if you will!

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!

CHARLES. What! hast thou not been buried?

OLD MOOR. I was buried--that is to say, a dead dog lies in the vault of
my ancestors, and I have been pining for three long moons in this dark
and loathsome dungeon, where no sunbeam shines, no warm breeze
penetrates, where no friend is seen, where the hoarse raven croaks and
owls screech their midnight concert.

CHARLES. Heaven and earth! Who has done this?

OLD MOOR. Curse him not! 'Tis my son, Francis, who did this.

CHARLES. Francis? Francis? Oh, eternal chaos!

OLD MOOR. If thou art a man, and hast a human heart--oh! my unknown
deliverer--then listen to a father's miseries which his own sons have
heaped upon him. For three long moons I have moaned my pitiful tale to
these flinty wa