“Nay, nay, good youth,” exclaimed a soft and whispered voice at his very shoulder. “Be not alarmed, ’tis but a festal scene. One hundred years from this night we all thronged yonder dancing hall, ’tis our pleasure, or mayhap our doom to return to the scene of our former gaiety. I was master of ceremonies an hundred years ago, I am master of ceremonies, ha, ha, yet once again. Will it please ye to choose a partner?”
With a feeling of involuntary horror, Adrian turned and beheld a Figure, clad in a gay robe of purple, faced with snow-white ermine, holding the rod of office in his hand, while a group of rainbow-hued plumes, hung drooping over his brow.
Adrian dashed the plumes aside, he beheld, oh sight of mockery, the fleshless skull, the hollow eye sockets, the cavity of the nose, the grinning teeth, and the hanging jaw, while the hand grasping the wand of office, was a grisly skeleton hand.
He turned from the bowing skeleton, and was rushing away with horror, when a new wonder fixed his attention.
The master of ceremonies waved his wand, and each skeleton driver leaped from his hearse.
Another signal and the long line of skeletons, each attired in gay and contrasted livery, extended their skeleton hands, and lifting the pall on high disclosed the gloomy burden of each death car, the coffin draped in black, with the heraldic plate of gold, affixed to each coffin lid.
A third wave of the wand from the master of ceremonies, and the skeleton drivers, unscrewed each coffin lid, and Adrian beheld the occupant of every tenement of death, slowly rise from their last resting place, gazing beneath the shadow of the uplifted funeral pall, around upon the court-yard.
As they gazed, Adrian beheld each fleshless skull, wearing the horrible grimace of death, looking forth from beneath their gaudy head-gear, the plumed cap, or the jeweled coronet, while their skeleton hands, arranged the folds of their attire, brushing the coffin dust from the gay robe, or fixing the tarnished ruffle around the neck with a yet more dainty grace, while the skeleton drivers, slowly let down the steps of each hearse fashioned in its sable side. The last signal was given by the master of ceremonies.
And with a low bow, each skeleton servitor extended his hand, to receive his fair lord or ladye, his fair young mistress or his gallant young master, as arising from their coffin, they placed their feet on the steps of the hearse, and slowly descended into the court-yard of the ancient castle.
“Great God, they are thronging around me,” shouted Adrian, “skeleton after skeleton, clad in the gay costume of life, descend from the funeral hearse wending in one ghastly throng toward the hall door, on their way to the festal scene. Oh, ghastly mockery! here are the forms of those who died when young, and the trembling skeletons of those whom death summoned when bending with the weight of years. Here are the skeletons of warrior and courtier, knight and minstrel. All wear glittering costumes, all mimic the actions of life. Cavalier takes the hand of Damosel, and Lord supports the form of Ladye, while the fleshless jaws, extend and grimace but speak no word. They utter a low moaning sound like the deaf mute when he essays to speak. ’Tis horrible, most horrible, this ghastly array of mockery, and hark—strange peals of music, are floating from yon lofty windows of the banquet hall!”