It was the figure of a man, but save for the wild, dark face that glared at him, the long, gaunt hands, like claws, that hung by its side, the thin legs half bare, and gaunt, splay bare feet on which it stood trembling, it seemed liker some monstrous rag. A loathsome and abominable stench exhaled from it. Its clothes were a dark shirt and trowsers, which hung in jagged tatters on its wasted skeleton frame. Wound round and round its neck in a thick sug, which gave it that appearance of shapelessness he had first noticed, was what seemed an old blanket. Above this glared a face of livid swarth, lit by the gloomy moon, the cheek bones protruding, the cheeks horribly sunken, the mouth fallen away from the white teeth, the eyes hollow and staring, the whole face that of some appalling mummy, burst from the leathern sleep of its Egyptian tomb, and endowed with horrid life to make night hideous.
The blood of Harrington seemed turned to ice as he gazed, and his hair rose.
“In the name of God,” he gasped, “what manner of man are you?”
The figure did not answer, but stared at him and trembled.
Harrington’s heart was stout, and conquering at once his affright and the sickening disgust which the stench gave him, he made one stride nearer to the figure.
“Who are you? Where did you come from?” he demanded.
The figure made no answer, but still stared rigidly at him, and trembled.
Harrington closely scanned the ghastly and hideous face, but could not determine anything concerning it. In the wan light of the moon, its horrible emaciation and livid duskiness of hue, together with the terrific expression the fallen mouth and exposed teeth gave it, made it seem like the face of a ghoul.
“Where do you live? Have you no home?” asked Harrington, shuddering.
“No, Marster.”