Explore "The Insane Root" by Rosa Praed on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
When some sixteen hours earlier Marillier started on his search for the mandrake's land, the young moon, so suggestive to him of Rachel's pure loveliness, had sunk behind the distant range of the Djurdjuras, and stormy clouds obscuring the stars made the night a heavy blackness. It seemed to him that the darkness overhanging the world was in accordance with the gloom which had fallen upon his own life. The moon had sunk and Rachel was lost to him.
He stole out of the castle by a side door that he had observed leading to the garden from the outer court, avoiding the principal entrance, where he knew that he must be checked by manifold bars and bolts. A lamp which had been left lighted in one of the corridors shed a glimmering ray across the square enclosure which, full as it seemed to Marillier of shadows and whispering sounds, gave him again an impression of ghostly occupancy.