Page 3

just as I have done, night after night, hearkening to the death

watches in the wall.

Presently I heard a slight groan, and I knew it was the

groan of mortal terror. It was not a groan of pain or of

grief—oh, no!—it was the low stifled sound that arises from

the bottom of the soul when overcharged with awe. I knew

the sound well. Many a night, just at midnight, when all the

world slept, it has welled up from my own bosom,

deepening, with its dreadful echo, the terrors that distracted

me. I say I knew it well. I knew what the old man felt, and

pitied him, although I chuckled at heart. I knew that he had

been lying awake ever since the first slight noise, when he

had turned in the bed. His fears had been ever since growing

upon him. He had been trying to fancy them causeless, but

could not. He had been saying to himself—"It is nothing but

the wind in the chimney—it is only a mouse crossing the

floor," or "it is merely a cricket which has made a single

chirp." Yes, he has been trying to comfort himself with these

suppositions; but he had found all in vain. All in vain;

because Death, in approaching him, had stalked with his

black shadow before him, and enveloped the victim. And it

was the mournful influence of the unperceived shadow that

caused him to feel—although he neither saw nor heard—to

feel the presence of my head within the room.

When I had waited a long time, very patiently, without

hearing him lie down, I resolved to open a little—a very,

very little crevice in the lantern. So I opened it—you cannot

imagine how stealthily, stealthily—until, at length, a single

dim ray, like the thread of the spider, shot from out the

crevice and full upon the vulture eye.

It was open—wide, wide open—and I grew furious as I

gazed upon it. I saw it with perfect distinctness—all a dull

blue, with a hideous veil over it that chilled the very marrow

in my bones; but I could see nothing else of the old man's