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 had 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
simple dim ray, like the thread of the spider,
shot from out the crevice and fell 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 face or person: for I had directed the ray
as if by instinct, precisely upon the damned
spot.
And have I not told you that what you mistake
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