At the top I found myself face to face with the Castle wall, which was some ten feet in height, and quite solid and uncrumbled. Between it and the rim of the crag, however, was a strip of level ground about half a yard broad, and I determined to follow it round until I should reach some angle at which it would be possible to climb the wall. On this strip the snow was heavily piled, and for security's sake I got me again to my hands and knees, flogging a path before me with the scabbard of my sword. I began to fear that I might be foiled in my endeavour for want of a companion; for again I bethought me, Julian only descended, and a man might drop from any portion of the wall, whereas the scaling of it was a different matter. I proceeded in the opposite direction to the Castle gates, and so came out above the south face of the precipice. Below me the houses of Lukstein village glimmered like a cluster of glow-worms; I had merely to roll over to fall dump among the roof-tops. I could even hear a faint murmur of brawling voices, and once I caught a plaintive snatch of song. For in that still, windless air sounds rose like bubbles in a clear pool of water.
The wall on my left curved and twisted with the indents of the cliff, and a little more than halfway across the face I came to a spot where it ran in and out at a sharp angle. Moreover, one of the turrets which I had remarked from the wood bulged out from the line, and made of this angle a sort of crevice. Into the corner I thrust my back, and working my elbows and knees, with some help from the roughness of the stones, I managed to mount on to the parapet. The Castle lay stretched before me. In front stood the main body of the building; to my right a shorter wing, ending in a tower, jutted off towards the wall on which I lay. A broad terrace, enclosing in the centre a patch of lawn, separated me from the building.
I fixed my eyes upon the tower. The window of the lower room was dark, and, strangely enough, 'twas the only window dark in the house. From the upper room there shone a faint gleam as of a lamp ill-trimmed. But all the other windows in the chief façade and the more distant part of this wing blazed out into the night. I could see passing figures shadowed upon the curtains, and music floated forth on a ripple of laughter, gavotte being linked to minuet and pavane in an endless melody.