Still completely possessed by the memory of my nightly visions, I approached the mysterious niche, and I cannot deny that my hand trembled as I drew aside the curtain.
And, behold . . . the two mortally hostile skulls were turned back to back!
A cold shudder ran twice or thrice right down my body.
This, at any rate, was no dream. I saw it. It was broad daylight. Outside, the usual daily noise and racket had begun, and at that very time I saw before me the most frightful of phantoms.
Then things really do happen beneath the sun which our philosophy cannot account for?
Then it is a fact that those two lifeless skulls live and hate and turn from each other even after death?
I don't believe it, it is impossible, it is not true.
I see, I tremble at it, and yet it is not true.
It is true, and yet I don't believe it.
I then bethought me of the story of the clergyman who was said to have discovered the subterranean marvel, and dared to put his hand on the head of the spectre, and then carried about the marks of its teeth to his dying day.