“What!” I cried; “had they no time even for you?”
And, as I spoke, I heard the sound of thousands of hoofs, and saw, passing me slowly on the dark air, the gaunt shapes of horses. From side to side, up, down—horses dragging worn feet, halting, passing—their heads lower than their hoofs.
And I cried out: “For Christ’s sake, pass!”
The voice answered: “We pass, sir. Farewell!”
With a sound of plunging the water rose black through the mist to the level of the Bridge, fell again, and all was once more still.
“I’m haunted!” I thought; and crossed to the other side. There, again, before me on the parapet was a gray shape that said: “I am the Bill of the Slaughtered Beasts.”
And, on the instant, there came at me in the air, as though I were the centre of a wheel, a million spokes of beasts, great beasts and little, snorting, writhing, quivering, with a sound of the gurgling of blood. And in terror I cried: “Pass!”
The voice answered: “We pass, sir. Farewell.”
And the river ran by below, swollen to the height of a hill—all red.
I began to run, crying out: “Enough!”