Now close your eyes in peace, and rest
Till morning rays illume the west:
Praise God the Lord!
A second time he blew his horn, and the sound re-echoed fearfully through the old Town House; the storm howled terrifically, and the rain pattered against the panes of my dwelling. In spite of the injunction of the watchman, I opened my eyes, and beheld him advancing towards the other end of the market-place, where he stopped to repeat his song; and again occasionally from street to street, till his voice died away in the distance. At this moment I was seized with an indefinable sensation of dread. I would have run after the watchman, but the rain deterred me. He, too, might have sung of something else than exactly of that fearful hour of night—
"When tombs do yawn and graves yield up their dead."
I did not feel at all comfortable. I was, notwithstanding, just about to nestle myself up again in the corner, and once more close my eyes, when they lighted on two, tall, meagre forms, whom I immediately recognised by their garb as chairmen. There was something mysterious in their movements, as if they were consulting on matters of grave import—of their discourse I could understand nothing—and their voices sounded to me, in the chair, something like the noise made by a brush when drawn over the surface of a sheet of paper. I was considering what might be the result of all this, when they suddenly seized hold of the chair, and marched off. I ought now indeed to have called out to them, but partly from a curiosity to discover the cause of this singular nocturnal ramble, and partly from a fear of being roughly treated for my obtrusiveness, I was induced to remain quietly in my corner. My weight did not seem to attract their notice; but how great was my astonishment on observing that my bearers were carrying me, in unvarying circles, round the market place, though at every turn they contracted the space they traversed—and that the usual heavy-sounding tread of the chairmen was changed for a noiseless, gliding pace. I looked out to see whether they had not drawn off their boots, but I was soon convinced by the evidence of my eyes that their heavy boots were in unison with the rest of the customary apparel of that class. Their evolutions now became gradually narrower, and I, in the same proportion, more anxious and excited. At length they stopped, panting, under the lamp-post which stands in the middle of the market place, and I was once more greeted by those low, hoarse sounds, which I have already mentioned, and it was only by dint of the most attentive listening, that I could distinguish the following words:
We are formed of the mist of the grave,
We bear to the feast of the slain,
There we carry the free and the slave,
The host and his numberless train,