Page:Fantastics and other Fancies.djvu/221

 — I heard the iron tongue of a bell utter one, with the sinister vibration of a knell,—signaling the eternal extinction of a life. Seven and seventy times that iron tongue had uttered its grim monosyllable since the last setting of the sun. The grizzled watcher of the inner gate extended his pallid palm for that eleemosynary contribution exacted from all visitors;—and it seemed to me that I beheld the gray Ferryman of Shadows himself, silently awaiting his obolus from me, also a Shadow. And as I glided into the world of agony beyond, the dead-bell moved its iron tongue again—once. . ..

Vast bare gleaming corridors into which many doors exhaled odors of medicines and moans and sound of light footsteps hurrying—then I stood a moment all alone—a long moment that I repass sometimes in dreams. (Only that in dreams of the past there are no sounds—the dead are dumb; and the fondest, may not retain the evanescent memory of a voice.) Then suddenly approached a swift step—so light, so light that it seemed the coming of a ghost; and I saw a slight figure black-robed from neck to feet, the