Right in front of him was standing a horrible
spectre, motionless as a carven image, and monstrous as a madman's dream!
Its head was bald and burnished; its face round, and fat, and white; and
hideous laughter seemed to have writhed its features into an eternal
grin. From the eyes streamed rays of scarlet light, the mouth was a wide
well of fire, and a hideous garment, like to his own, swathed with its
silent snows the Titan form. On its breast was a placard with strange
writing in antique characters, some scroll of shame it seemed, some
record of wild sins, some awful calendar of crime, and, with its right
hand, it bore aloft a falchion of gleaming steel.
Never having seen a ghost before, he naturally was terribly frightened,
and, after a second hasty glance at the awful phantom, he fled back to
his room, tripping up in his long winding-sheet as he sped down the
corridor, and finally dropping the rusty dagger into the Minister's jack-
boots, where it was found in the morning by the butler. Once in the
privacy of his own apartment, he flung himself down on a small pallet-
bed, and hid his face under the clothes.
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