I pulled myself together, and getting out of bed, groped my way to the table which stood between the bed and the fireplace.The matches were there, and my half-burnt candle, which I lit.The wind penetrating the rattling casement circled round the room, and the flame of my candle bent and flared and shrank before it, throwing strange moving lights and shadows in every corner.Istood there shivering in my thin nightdress, half stunned by the cataract of noise beating on the walls outside, and peered anxiously around me.The room was not the same.Something was changed.What was it? How the shadows leaped and fell, dancing in time to the wind's music.Everything seemed alive.I turned my head slowly to the left, and then to the right, and then round--and stopped with a sudden gasp of fear.
The cabinet was open!
I looked away, and back, and again.There was no room for doubt.
The doors were thrown back, and were waving gently in the draught.
One of the lower drawers was pulled out, and in a sudden flare of the candle-light I could see something glistening at its bottom.
Then the light dwindled again, the candle was almost out, and the cabinet showed a dim black mass in the darkness.Up and down went the flame, and each returning brightness flashed back at me from the thing inside the drawer.I stood fascinated, my eyes fixed upon the spot, waiting for the fitful glitter as it came and went.
What was there there? I knew that I must go and see, but I did not want to.If only the cabinet would close again before I looked, before I knew what was inside it.But it stood open, and the glittering thing lay there, dragging me towards itself.
Slowly at last, and with infinite reluctance, I went.The drawer was lined with soft white satin, and upon the satin lay a long, slender knife, hilted and sheathed in antique silver, richly set with jewels.I took it up and turned back to the table to examine it.It was Italian in workmanship, and I knew that the carving and chasing of the silver were more precious even than the jewels which studded it, and whose rough setting gave so firm a grasp to my hand.Was the blade as fair as the covering, I wondered? A little resistance at first, and then the long thin steel slid easily out.
Sharp, and bright, and finely tempered it looked with its deadly, tapering point.Stains, dull and irregular, crossed the fine engraving on its surface and dimmed its polish.I bent to examine them more closely, and as I did so a sudden stronger gust of wind blew out the candle.I shuddered a little at the darkness and looked up.But it did not matter: the curtain was still drawn away from the window opposite my bedside, and through it a flood of moonlight was pouring in upon floor and bed.
Putting the sheath down upon the table, I walked to the window to examine the knife more closely by that pale light.How gloriously brilliant it was! darkened now and again by the quickly passing shadows of wind-driven clouds.At least so I thought, and Iglanced up and out of the window to see them.A black world met my gaze.Neither moon was there nor moonlight: the broad silver beam in which I stood stretched no farther than the window.I caught my breath, and my limbs stiffened as I looked.No moon, no cloud, no movement in the clear, calm, starlit sky; while still the ghastly light stretched round me, and the spectral shadows drifted across the room.
But it was not all dark outside: one spot caught my eye, bright with a livid unearthly brightness--the Dead Stone shining out into the night like an ember from hell's furnace! There was a horrid semblance of life in the light,--a palpitating, breathing glow,--and my pulses beat in time to it, till I seemed to be drawing it into my veins.It had no warmth, and as it entered my blood my heart grew colder, and my muscles more rigid.My fingers clutched the dagger-hilt till its jeweled roughness pressed painfully into my palm.All the strength of my strained powers seemed gathered in that grasp, and the more tightly I held the more vividly did the rock gleam and quiver with infernal life.The dead woman! The dead woman! What had I to do with her? Let her bones rest in the filth of their own decay,--out there under the accursed stone.
And now the noise of the wind lessens in my ears.Let it go on,--yes, louder and wilder, drowning my senses in its tumult.What is there with me in the room--the great empty room behind me?
Nothing; only the cabinet with its waving doors.They are waving to and fro, to and fro--I know it.But there is no other life in the room but that--no, no; no other life in the room but that.
Oh! don't let the wind stop.I can't hear anything while it goes on;--but if it stops! Ah! the gusts grow weaker, struggling, forced into rest.Now--now--they have ceased.
Silence!
A fearful pause.
What is that that I hear? There, behind me in the room?
Do I hear it? Is there anything?
The throbbing of my own blood in my ears.
No, no! There is something as well,--something outside myself.
What is it?
Low; heavy; regular.
God! it is--it is the breath of a living creature! A living creature! here--close to me--alone with me!
The numbness of terror conquers me.I can neither stir nor speak.
Only my whole soul strains at my ears to listen.
Where does the sound come from?
Close behind me--close.
Ah-h!
It is from there--from the bed where I was lying a moment ago!...
I try to shriek, but the sound gurgles unuttered in my throat.Iclutch the stone mullions of the window, and press myself against the panes.If I could but throw myself out!--anywhere, anywhere--away from that dreadful sound--from that thing close behind me in the bed! But I can do nothing.The wind has broken forth again now; the storm crashes round me.And still through it all I hear the ghastly breathing--even, low, scarcely audible--but I hear it.
I shall hear it as long as I live!...
Is the thing moving?
Is it coming nearer?
No, no; not that,--that was but a fancy to freeze me dead.
