“I believed myself the sport of an hallucination and not withdrawing my eyes from her for an instant, I scarcely dared breathe, fearing that a breath might dissolve the enchantment.
“She remained motionless.
“The fancy crossed my mind, on seeing her so shining, so transparent, that this was no creature of the earth, but a spirit, that, once more assuming for an instant the veil of human form, had descended in the moonbeam, leaving in the air behind it the azure track which slanted from the high window to the foot of the opposite wall, breaking the deep gloom of that dusky, mysterious recess.”
“But—” interrupted his former schoolmate, who, inclined at the outset to make fun of the story, had at last grown closely attentive—“how came that woman there? Did you not speak to her? Did she not explain to you her presence in that place?”
“I decided not to address her, because I was sure that she would not answer me, nor see me, nor hear me.”
“Was she deaf?”
“Was she blind?”
“Was she dumb?” exclaimed simultaneously three or four of those who were listening to the story.
“She was all at once,” finally declared the captain after a moment’s pause, “for she was—— marble.”
On hearing this remarkable dénouement of so strange an adventure, the bystanders burst into a noisy peal of laughter, while one of them said to the narrator of this curious experience, who alone remained quiet and of grave deportment: