We looked at each other in horror-stricken silence, while the merchant, raising his arms above his head, chanted in a sepulchral voice:
“And the phantom said, as he rose from the wave,
He shall know me in sooth!
I will go to my friend, gay, smiling and fond,
As in our first youth!”
“What do you see?” said he.
“I see the phantom advance; he lifts his veil—’tis Francis Villiers! he approaches the table—he writes!—’tis his signature!”
“Are you afraid?”
A fearful moment of silence ensued; then the student replied, but in an altered voice:
“I am not.”