midnight
-LSB- 27 -RSB- The sighing of the trees , thunder and sudden flashes of lightning add to the horror of a journey , which resembles Mrs. Radcliffe 's description of Emily 's approach to Udolpho . When Count Fathom takes refuge in a robber 's hut , he discovers in his room , which has no bolt on the inside of the door , the body of a recently murdered man , concealed beneath some bundles of straw . Effecting his escape by placing the corpse in his own bed to deceive the robbers , the count is mistaken for a phantom by the old woman who waits upon him . In carrying out his designs upon Celinda , the count aggravates her natural timidity by relating dismal stories of omens and apparitions , and then groans piteously outside her door and causes the mysterious music of an Æolian harp to sound upon the midnight air . Celinda sleeps , too , like the ill-starred heroine of the novel of terror , `` at the end of a long gallery , scarce within hearing of any other inhabited part of the house . '' -LSB- 28 -RSB- The scene in _ Count Fathom _ , in which Renaldo , at midnight , visits , as he thinks , the tomb of Monimia , is surrounded with circumstances of gloom and mystery : `` The uncommon darkness of the night , the solemn silence and lonely situation of the place , conspired with the occasion of his coming and the dismal images of his fancy , to produce a real rapture of gloomy expectation ... The clock struck twelve , the owl screeched from the ruined battlement , the door was opened by the sexton , who , by the light of a glimmering taper , conducted the despairing lover to a dreary aisle . '' As he watches again on a second night : `` His ear was suddenly invaded with the sound of some few , solemn notes , issuing from the organ which seemed to feel the impulse of an invisible hand ... reason shrunk before the thronging ideas of his fancy , which represented this music as the prelude to something strange and supernatural . ''