At last,
in the deep shadow next the farther wall, I thought I could discover a
figure, sometimes erect, sometimes stooping and bowing toward the earth. I
could see this figure only in the rudest outline mingling with the dark.
Like a thunderbolt it smote my brain. 'They are making my grave!'
After the first dreadful stun I grew quite wild, and ran up and down the
room wringing my hands and gasping prayers to heaven. Then a calm stole
over me--such a dreadful calm as I could fancy glide over one who floated
in a boat under the shadow of the 'Traitor's Gate,' leaving life and hope
and trouble behind.
Shortly after there came a very low tap at my door; then another, like a
tiny post-knock. I could never understand why it was I made no answer. Had
I done so, and thus shown that I was awake, it might have sealed my fate.
I was standing in the middle of the floor staring at the door, which I
expected to see open, and admit I knew not what troop of spectres.
CHAPTER LXIV
_THE HOUR OF DEATH_
It was a very still night and frosty. My candle had long burnt out. There
was still a faint moonlight, which fell in a square of yellow on the floor
near the window, leaving the rest of the room in what to an eye less
accustomed than mine had become to that faint light would have been total
darkness.
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