Room in the Dragon Volant

Room in the Dragon Volant

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Title: The Room in the Dragon Volant
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THE ROOM IN THE DRAGON VOLANT
By J. Sheridan LeFanu

_Other books by J. Sheridan LeFanu_
The Cock and Anchor Torlogh O'Brien The Home by the Churchyard
Uncle Silas Checkmate Carmilla The Wyvern Mystery Guy Deverell
Ghost Stories and Tales of Mystery The Chronicles of Golden Friars In
a Glass Darkly The Purcell Papers The Watcher and Other Weird
Stories A Chronicle of Golden Friars and Other Stories Madam Crowl's
Ghost and Other Tales of Mystery Green Tea and Other Stones
Sheridan LeFanu: The Diabolic Genius Best Ghost Stories of J.S.
LeFanu The Best Horror Stories The Vampire Lovers and Other Stories
Ghost Stories and Mysteries The Hours After Midnight J.S. LeFanu:
Ghost Stories and Mysteries Ghost and Horror Stones Green Tea and
Other Ghost Stories Carmilla and Other Classic Tales of Mystery

The Room in the Dragon Volant

Prologue _The curious case which I am about to place before you, is
referred to, very pointedly, and more than once, in the extraordinary
Essay upon the Drug of the Dark and the Middle Ages, from the pen of
Doctor Hesselius_.
This Essay he entitles Mortis Imago, _and he, therein, discusses the_
Vinum letiferum, the Beatifica, the Somnus Angelorum, the Hypnus
Sagarum, the Aqua Thessalliae, _and about twenty other infusions and
distillations, well known to the sages of eight hundred years ago, and
two of which are still, he alleges, known to the fraternity of thieves, and,

among them, as police-office inquiries sometimes disclose to this day,
in practical use_.
_The Essay,_ Mortis Imago, _will occupy, as nearly as I can at present
calculate, two volumes, the ninth and tenth, of the collected papers of
Dr. Martin Hesselius_.
_This Essay, I may remark in conclusion, is very curiously enriched by
citations, in great abundance, from medieval verse and prose romance,
some of the most valuable of which, strange to say, are Egyptian_.
_I have selected this particular statement from among many cases
equally striking, but hardly, I think, so effective as mere narratives; in
this irregular form of publication, it is simply as a story that I present
it_.

Chapter I
ON THE ROAD
In the eventful year, 1815, I was exactly three-and-twenty, and had just
succeeded to a very large sum in consols and other securities. The first
fall of Napoleon had thrown the continent open to English excursionists,
anxious, let us suppose, to improve their minds by foreign travel; and
I--the slight cheek of the "hundred days" removed, by the genius of
Wellington, on the field of Waterloo--was now added to the
philosophic throng.
I was posting up to Paris from Brussels, following, I presume, the route
that the allied army had pursued but a few weeks before--more
carriages than you could believe were pursuing the same line. You
could not look back or forward, without seeing into far perspective the
clouds of dust which marked the line of the long series of vehicles. We
were perpetually passing relays of return-horses, on their way, jaded
and dusty, to the inns from which they had been taken. They were
arduous times for those patient public servants. The whole world

seemed posting up to Paris.
I ought to have noted it more particularly, but my head was so full of
Paris and the future that I passed the intervening scenery with little
patience and less attention; I think, however, that it was about four
miles to the frontier side