The silence about him
was so deep that he embarked once more in dreams that grew gradually
darker and darker as if by magic, as the light slowly faded. A last
struggling ray from the sun lit up rosy answering lights. He raised
his head and saw a skeleton dimly visible, with its skull bent
doubtfully to one side, as if to say, "The dead will none of thee as
yet."
He passed his hand over his forehead to shake off the drowsiness, and
felt a cold breath of air as an unknown furry something swept past his
cheeks. He shivered. A muffled clatter of the windows followed; it was
a bat, he fancied, that had given him this chilly sepulchral caress.
He could yet dimly see for a moment the shapes that surrounded him, by
the vague light in the west; then all these inanimate objects were
blotted out in uniform darkness. Night and the hour of death had
suddenly come. Thenceforward, for a while, he lost consciousness of
the things about him; he was either buried in deep meditation or sleep
overcame him, brought on by weariness or by the stress of those many
thoughts that lacerated his heart.
Suddenly he thought that an awful voice called him by name; it was
like some feverish nightmare, when at a step the dreamer falls
headlong over into an abyss, and he trembled.
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