Page:Singular adventures of a knight.pdf/12

 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 porta swinging to their close, sounded as the sentence of death. A dun, fætid smoke filled the place, in the centre of which arose a faint and bickering flame. Sir Gawen approached, and beheld a corse suspended over it by the neck, its fat dropped, and the flame flashing through the vault, gleamed on a throng of hideous and gastly features, that now came forward through the smoke. Sir Gawen, with the desperate valour of a man who sees destruction before him, ran furious forward; an universal shriek burst forth; the corse dropped into the fire, which rising with tenfold brilliance, placed full in view the dreadful form of his