Was It--the dark form with the chain--a
creature of this world, or a specter? And again--more dreadful
still--could it be that the corpses of wicked men were forced to
rise and haunt in the body the places where they had wrought their
evil deeds? And was such as these my grisly neighbor? The chain
faintly rattled. My hair bristled; my eyeballs seemed starting
from their sockets; the damps of a great anguish were on my brow.
My heart labored as if I were crushed beneath some vast weight.
Sometimes it appeared to stop its frenzied beatings, sometimes its
pulsations were fierce and hurried; my breath came short and with
extreme difficulty, and I shivered as if with cold; yet I feared to
stir. IT moved, it moaned, its fetters clanked dismally, the couch
creaked and shook. This was no phantom, then--no air-drawn
specter. But its very solidity, its palpable presence, were a
thousand times more terrible. I felt that I was in the very grasp
of what could not only affright but harm; of something whose
contact sickened the soul with deathly fear. I made a desperate
resolve: I glided from the bed, I seized a warm wrapper, threw it
around me, and tried to grope, with extended hands, my way to the
door.
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