“Yes,” went on El-Râmi, warming with his subject. “And he talks of the ‘dread of something after death,’ as if it were only a ‘dread,’ and not a fact;—whereas if he is to believe the spirit of his own father, which he declares is ‘an honest ghost,’ there is no possibility of doubt on the matter. Does not the mournful phantom say—
“‘But that I am forbid
To tell the secrets of my prison-house,
I could a tale unfold, whose lightest word
Would harrow up thy soul; freeze thy young blood;
Make thy two eyes like stars start from their spheres;
Thy knotted and combinèd locks to part,
And each particular hair to stand on end. ...’?”
“By Jove! I say, El-Râmi, don’t look at me like that!” exclaimed Vaughan uneasily, backing away from a too close proximity to the brilliant flashing eyes and absorbed face of his companion, who had recited the lines with extraordinary passion and solemnity.
El-Râmi laughed.