But it lay not in the power of images, or sensations, or impediments like these, to stay the course of men who, naturally brave, and at that time especially, brimful of courage and of "humming-stuff," would have reeled, as straight as their condition might have permitted, undauntedly into the very jaws of the Archangel Death. Onward—still onward stalked the gigantic Legs, making the desolate solemnity echo and re-echo with yells like the terrific warwhoop of the Indian: and onward—still onward rolled the dumpy Tarpaulin, hanging on to the doublet of his more active companion, and far surpassing the latter's most strenuous exertions in the way of vocal music by bull-roarings in basso, from the profundity of his Stentorian lungs.
They had now evidently reached the strong hold of the pestilence. Their way at every step or plunge grew more noisome and more horrible—the paths more narrow and more intricate. Huge stones and beams falling momentarily from the decaying roofs above them, gave evidence, by their sullen and heavy descent, of the vast height of the surrounding buildings, while actual exertion became necessary to force a passage through frequent heaps of putrid human corpses.
Suddenly, as the seamen stumbled against the entrance of a gigantic and ghastly-looking building, a yell more than usually shrill from the throat of the excited Legs, was replied to from within in a rapid succession of wild, laughter-like, and fiendish shrieks.
Nothing daunted at sounds which, of such a nature, at such a time, and in such a place, might have curdled the very blood in hearts less irrecoverably on fire, the drunken couple burst open the pannels of the door, and staggered into the midst of things with a volley of curses. It is not to be supposed however, that the scene which here presented itself to the eyes of the gallant Legs and worthy Tarpaulin, produced at first sight any other effect upon their illuminated faculties than an overwhelming sensation of stupid astonishment.
The room within which they found themselves, proved to be the shop of an undertaker—but an open trap-door in a corner of the floor near the entrance, looked down upon a long range of wine-cellars, whose depths the occasional sounds of bursting bottles proclaimed to be well stored with their appropriate contents. In the middle of the room stood a table—in the centre of which again arose a huge tub of what appeared to be punch. Bottles of various wines and cordials, together with grotesque jugs, pitchers, and flagons of every shape and quality, were scattered profusely upon the board. Around it, upon coffin-tressels, was seated a company of six—this company I will endeavor to delineate one by one.
Fronting the entrance, and elevated a little above his companions, sat a personage who appeared to be the president of the table. His stature was gaunt and tall, and Legs was confounded to behold in him a figure more emaciated than himself. His face was yellower than the yellowest saffron—but no feature of his visage, excepting one alone, was sufficiently marked to merit a particular description. This one consisted in a forehead so unusually and hideously lofty, as to have the appearance of a bonnet or crown of flesh superseded upon the natural head. His mouth was puckered and dimpled into a singular expression of ghastly affability, and his eyes, as indeed the eyes of all at table, were glazed over with the fumes of intoxication.
This gentleman was clothed from head to foot in a richly embroidered black silk-velvet pall wrapped negligently around his form after the fashion of a Spanish cloak. His head was stuck all full of tall, sable hearse-plumes, which he nodded to and fro with a jaunty and knowing air, and, in his right hand, he held a huge human thigh-bone, with which he appeared to have been just knocking down some member of the company for a song.
Opposite him, and with her back to the door, was a lady of no whit the less extraordinary character. Although quite as tall as the person who has just been described, she had no right to complain of his unnatural emaciation. She was evidently in the last stage of a dropsy; and her figure resembled nearly in outline the shapeless proportions of the huge puncheon of October beer which stood, with the head driven in, close by her side, in a corner of the chamber. Her face was exceedingly round, red, and full—and the same peculiarity, or rather want of peculiarity, attached itself to her countenance, which I before mentioned in the case of the president—that is to say, only one feature of her face was sufficiently distinguished to need a separate characterization: indeed, the acute Tarpaulin immediately observed that the same remark might have applied to each individual person of the party; every one of whom seemed to possess a monopoly of some particular portion of physiognomy. With the lady in question this portion proved to be the mouth. Commencing at the right ear, it swept with a terrific chasm to the left—the short pendants which she wore in either auricle continually bobbing into the aperture. She made, however, every exertion to keep her jaws closed and look dignified, in a dress consisting of a newly starched and ironed shroud coming up close under her chin, with a crimped ruffle of cambric muslin.
At her right hand sat a diminutive young lady whom she appeared to patronize. This delicate little creature, in the trembling of her wasted fingers, in the livid hue of her lips, and in the slight hectic spot which tinged her otherwise leaden complexion, gave evident indications of a galloping consumption.
An air of extreme haut ton, however, pervaded her whole appearance—she wore in a graceful and degagé manner, a large and beautiful winding-sheet of the finest India lawn—her hair hung in ringlets over her neck—a soft smile played about her mouth—but her nose, extremely long, thin, sinuous, flexible, and pimpled, hung down far below her under lip, and, in spite of the delicate manner in which she now and then moved it to one side or the other with her tongue, gave an expression rather doubtful to her countenance.