Page:Singular adventures of Sir Gawen, and the enchanted castle.pdf/13

13 ideas passed unconnected through his mind: at length however, memory resumed her function, resumed it but to daunt him with harrowing suggestions; the direful horrors of the room behind and of the vault below, were still present to his eyes, and as a man whom hellish fiends had frightened, he stood trembling, pale and staring wild. All was now silent and dark, and he determined to wait in this spot the dawn of day, but a few minutes had scarce elapsed, when the iron door, screaming on its hinges, bellowed through the murmuring ruin. Sir Gawen nearly fainted at the sound, which pausing for some time again swelled upon the wind, and at last died away in shrill melancholy shrieks; again all was silent and again the same fearful noise struck terror to his soul. Whilst he was thus agitated with horror and apprehension. a dim light streaming from behind, accompanied with a soft quick and hollow tread, convinced Sir Gawen that something was pursuing him, and struck with wildering fear, he rushed unconscious down the steps, the vault received him, and its portal swinging to their close, sounded as the sentence of death. A dun faetid smoke filled the place, in the centre of which arose a faint and bickering flame Sir Gawen approached, and beheld a corpse suspended over it by the neck, its fat dropped, and