Hours fled by,
and I remained like a statue of ice, rigid and mute. I even slept,
for I remember that I started to find the cold gray light of an
early winter's day was on my face, and stealing around the room
from between the heavy curtains of the window.
Shuddering, but urged by the impulse that rivets the gaze of the
bird upon the snake, I turned to see the Horror of the night. Yes,
it was no fevered dream, no hallucination of sickness, no airy
phantom unable to face the dawn. In the sickly light I saw it
lying on the bed, with its grim head on the pillow. A man? Or a
corpse arisen from its unhallowed grave, and awaiting the demon
that animated it? There it lay--a gaunt, gigantic form, wasted to
a skeleton, half-clad, foul with dust and clotted gore, its huge
limbs flung upon the couch as if at random, its shaggy hair
streaming over the pillows like a lion's mane. His face was toward
me. Oh, the wild hideousness of that face, even in sleep! In
features it was human, even through its horrid mask of mud and
half-dried bloody gouts, but the expression was brutish and
savagely fierce; the white teeth were visible between the parted
lips, in a malignant grin; the tangled hair and beard were mixed in
leonine confusion, and there were scars disfiguring the brow.
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