University of Virginia Library

24. XXIV.

IT was not long till I opened them. Ellis began to nestle against me in a singular way; she nearly stifled me. I turned my eyes upon her and the blood curdled in my veins. Every one will understand me who has ever chanced to catch an expression of extreme terror on a stranger's face without any suspicion of its cause. A transport of horror drew and distorted Ellis's pallid, almost blotted-out features. Never had I seen the like on mortal face; here was a bodiless, nebulous ghost, a shadow, and such rigidity of fear!

"Ellis! What is the matter with you?" I asked at last.

"He! It is he!" With difficulty she brought the words forth.

"He? Who is he?"

"Do not name him, do not name him," Ellis stammered in haste. "We must seek some refuge, else it is all at an end, and forever. Look! There!"

I turned my head to the side where her shuddering finger was pointing, and was conscious of Something—something that was indeed awful to look upon.

This something was the more frightful that it had no decided form. A clumsy, horrible, dark-yellow Thing, spotted like a lizard's belly, neither cloud nor smoke, was crawling snake-like over the earth. Its motion was measured, broad-sweeping from above to below and from below to above, like the ill-omened flight of a bird of prey that seeks its booty; from time to time it swooped upon the earth in an indescribable, hideous way; so the spider pounces upon the entrapped fly. Who or what art thou, grewsome Shape? Under its influence—I saw and felt this—everything shrivelled and grew rigid. A foul, pestilential chill spread upward. I felt myself fainting; my sight grew dim, my hair stood on end. It was a Power that was approaching; a power that knows no obstacle, that subjects everything to itself; that, blind and formless and senseless, sees everything, knows everything, controls everything; like a vulture selects its prey, like a snake crushes it and licks it with its deadly tongue.

"Ellis, Ellis," I shrieked like a madman, "That is Death! The very, living Death himself!"

The lamentable sound that I had heard before escaped Ellis's lips, only this time it was far more like a mortal cry of despair; and we flew on. Our flight was singularly and frightfully unsteady; Ellis turned over and over in the air, plunged first in one direction then in the other, like a partridge that, wounded unto death, still endeavors to distract the dog from her brood. But in the meanwhile long feelers, like extended arms, or rather lassos, had disengaged themselves from the lump, and were stretching out after us with groping movements. And then of a sudden it rose into the gigantic shape of a shrouded figure on a pale horse. It grew, filling the Heavens themselves. More agitated, more desperate became Ellis's flight. "He has seen me— it is all over—I am lost," I caught in broken whispers. "O miserable that I am! The opportunity so close! Life within my grasp! and now—nothingness—nothingness!"

I could bear it no longer. Consciousness left me.