After remaining here for
some time, without seeing or hearing any thing more of his mysterious
conductor, he returned to the house, full of awe and wonder. He bolted
the door, groped his way back to bed, and it was long before he could
compose himself to sleep.
His dreams were strange and troubled. He thought he was following the
old man along the side of a great river, until they came to a vessel
that was on the point of sailing; and that his conductor led him on
board and vanished. He remembered the commander of the Tessel, a short
swarthy man,--with crisped black hair, blind of one eye, and lame of
one leg; but the rest of his dream was very confused. Sometimes he was
sailing; sometimes on shore; now amidst storms and tempests, and now
wandering quietly in unknown streets. The figure of the old man was
strangely mingled up with the incidents of the dream; and the whole
distinctly wound up by his finding himself on board of the vessel
again, returning home, with a great bag of money!
When he woke, the gray, cool light of dawn was streaking the horizon,
and the cocks passing the reveil from farm to farm throughout the
country. He rose more harassed and perplexed than ever. He was
singularly confounded by all that he had seen and dreamt, and began to
doubt whether his mind was not affected, and whether all that was
passing in his thoughts might not be mere feverish fantasy.
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