Under the impression that I was subjected to an accidental intrusion, I called out, first in a gentle and afterward in a sharper tone,
"Who's there?"
At the second summons the sound ceased, and I heard instead the tread of naked feet, as it seemed to me, upon the floor, pacing to and fro, between the hearth and the bed in which I lay. A superstitious terror, which I could not combat, stole over me; with an effort I repeated my question, and drawing myself upright in the bed, expected the answer with a strange sort of trepidation. It came in terms and accompanied with accessories which I shall not soon forget.
The very same tones which had so startled me in the church-yard the evening before, the very sounds which I had heard then and there, were now filling my ears, and spoken in the chamber where I lay.
"Why will you trouble the dead? Who can torment us before the time? I will come to you in my flesh, 'though after my skin worms destroy this body,' and you shall speak with me face to face."
As I live. I can swear the words and the voice were the very same I had heard on the occasion I have mentioned, but (and mark this) repeated to no one. With feelings which I shall not attempt to describe, I heard the speaker approach the bed—a hand parted the bed-curtains and drew them open, revealing a form more horrible than my fancy had ever seen—an almost gigantic figure—naked, except for what might well have been the rotten remnant of a shroud—stood close beside my bed—livid and cadaverous—grimed as it seemed with the dust of the grave, and staring on me with a gaze of despair, malignity, and fury, too intense almost for human endurance.
I can not say whether I spoke or not, but this infernal spectre answered me as if I had.
"I am dead and yet alive," it said, "the child of perdition—in the grave I am a murderer, but here I am Apollyon. Fall down and worship me."
Having thus spoken, it stood for a moment at the bedside, and then turned away with a shuddering moan, and I lost sight of it, but after a few seconds it came again to the bedside as before.
"When I died they put me under Mervyn's tombstone, and they did not bury me. My feet lie toward the west—turn them to the east and I will rest—maybe I will rest—I will rest—rest—rest."