[PART SEVENTH.]
THE DAY OF TWENTY-ONE YEARS.
DECEMBER 25, 1844.
CHAPTER I.
MARTIN FULMER APPEARS.
The time was very near. The cycle of twenty-one years was in its last hour. It was the last hour of December twenty-fourth, 1844. That hour passed, the twenty-one years would be complete.
Darkness and storm were upon the Empire City. The snow fell fast, and the wind, howling over the river and the roofs, made mournful music among the arches of unfinished Trinity Church. In the gloom, amid the falling snow, four persons stood around the family vault of the Van Huydens. Even had the storm and darkness failed to cover them from observation, they would have been defended from all prying eyes, by the crape masks which they wore. The marble slab bearing the name of "Van Huyden," was thrust aside, and from the gloom of the vault beneath, the coffin was slowly raised into view; the coffin which was inscribed with the name of Gulian Van Huyden, and with the all-significant dates, December 25th, 1823, and December 25th, 1844.