.. If a leaf of the paper,
which I slowly, warily, stealingly turned, made but one faintest rustle,
how did that _reveille_ boom in echoes through the vacant and haunted
chambers of my poor aching heart, my God! and there was a cough in my
throat which for a cruelly long time I would not cough, till it burst in
horrid clamour from my lips, sending crinkles of cold through my inmost
blood. For with the words which I read were all mixed up visions of
crawling hearses, wails, and lugubrious crapes, and piercing shrieks of
madness in strange earthy vaults, and all the mournfulness of the black
Vale of Death, and the tragedy of corruption. Twice during the ghostly
hours of that night the absolute and undeniable certainty that some
presence--some most gashly silent being--stood at my right elbow, so
thrilled me, that I leapt to my feet to confront it with clenched fists,
and hairs that bristled stiff in horror and frenzy. After that second
time I must have fainted; for when it was broad day, I found my dropped
head over the file of papers, supported on my arms.
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