"You would have cause to rejoice!" I said.
He moved two paces towards me, and laid his hands gently on my
shoulders.
"No, Geoffrey"--and his rich voice had a strange soft music in it--"No,
my friend! If I were Satan I should probably lament!--for every lost
soul would of necessity remind me of my own fall, my own despair,--and
set another bar between myself and heaven! Remember,--the very Devil
was an Angel once!"
His eyes smiled, and yet I could have sworn there were tears in them. I
wrung his hand hard,--I felt that notwithstanding his assumed coldness
and cynicism, the fate of young Lynton had affected him profoundly. My
liking for him gained new fervour from this impression, and I went to
bed more at ease with myself and things in general. During the few
minutes I spent in undressing I became even able to contemplate the
tragedy of the evening with less regret and greater calmness,--for it
was certainly no use worrying over the irrevocable,--and, after all,
what interest had the Viscount's life for me? None. I began to ridicule
myself for my own weakness and disinterested emotion,--and presently,
being thoroughly fatigued, fell sound asleep. Towards morning however,
perhaps about four or five o'clock, I woke suddenly as though touched by
an invisible hand. I was shivering violently, and my body was bathed in
a cold perspiration. In the otherwise dark room there was something
strangely luminous, like a cloud of white smoke or fire. I started up,
rubbing my eyes,--and stared before me for a moment, doubting the
evidence of my own senses. For, plainly visible and substantially
distinct, at a distance of perhaps five paces from my bed, stood three
Figures, muffled in dark garments and closely hooded. So solemnly inert
they were,--so heavily did their sable draperies fall about them that it
was impossible to tell whether they were men or women,--but what
paralysed me with amazement and terror was the strange light that played
around and above them,--the spectral, wandering, chill radiance that
illumined them like the rays of a faint wintry moon. I strove to cry
out,--but my tongue refused to obey me--and my voice was strangled in my
throat. The Three remained absolutely motionless,--and again I rubbed my
eyes, wondering if this were a dream or some hideous optical delusion.
Trembling in every limb, I stretched my hand towards the bell intending
to ring violently for assistance,--when--a Voice, low and thrilling with
intense anguish, caused me to shrink back appalled, and my arm fell
nerveless at my side. "_Misery!_"
The word struck the air with a harsh reproachful clang, and I nearly
swooned with the horror of it. For now one of the Figures moved, and a
face gleamed out from beneath its hooded wrappings--a face white as
whitest marble and fixed into such an expression of dreadful despair as
froze my blood. Then came a deep sigh that was more like a death-groan,
and again the word, "_Misery!_" shuddered upon the silence.
Mad with fear, and scarcely knowing what I did, I sprang from the bed,
and began desperately to advance upon these fantastic masqueraders,
determined to seize them and demand the meaning of this practical and
untimely jest,--when suddenly all Three lifted their heads and turned
their faces on me,--such faces!--indescribably awful in their pallid
agony,--and a whisper more ghastly than a shriek, penetrated the very
fibres of my consciousness--"_Misery!_"
With a furious bound I flung myself upon them,--my hands struck _empty
space_. Yet there--distinct as ever--they stood, glowering down upon me,
while my clenched fists beat impotently _through_ and _beyond_ their
seemingly corporeal shapes! And then--all at once--I became aware of
their eyes,--eyes that watched me pitilessly, stedfastly, and
disdainfully,--eyes that like witch-fires, seemed to slowly burn
terrific meanings into my very flesh and spirit. Convulsed and almost
frantic with the strain on my nerves, I abandoned myself to
despair,--this awful sight meant death I thought,--my last hour had
surely come! Then--I saw the lips of one of those dreadful faces move
... some superhuman instinct in me leaped to life, ... in some strange
way I thought I knew, or guessed the horror of what that next utterance
would be, ... and with all my remaining force I cried out--
"No! No! Not that eternal Doom! ... Not yet!"
Fighting the vacant air, I strove to beat back those intangible weird
Shapes that loomed above me, withering up my soul with the fixed stare
of their angry eyes, and with a choking call for help, I fell, as it
were, into a pit of darkness, where I lay mercifully unconscious.