She gave a
hysterical gasp. Where was the slow music?
Her face, her body, were wet--as if a wave of death-sweat had broken
over them. There was a stiff feeling at the roots of her hair; she
wondered if it were really standing erect. But she could not raise her
hand to ascertain. Possibly it was only the coloring matter freezing and
bleaching. Her muscles were flabby, her nerves twitched helplessly.
She knew that it was Death who was coming to her through the silent
deserted house; knew that it was the sensitive ear of her intelligence
that heard him, not the dull, coarse-grained ear of the body.
He toiled up the stair painfully, as if he were old and tired with much
work. But how could he afford to loiter, with all the work he had to do?
Every minute, every second, he must be in demand to hook his cold, hard
finger about a soul struggling to escape from its putrefying tenement.
But probably he had his emissaries, his minions: for only those worthy
of the honor did he come in person.
He reached the first landing and crept like a cat down the hall to the
next stair, then crawled slowly up as before. Light as the footfalls
were, they were squarely planted, unfaltering; slow, they never halted.
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