ally deepening in substance towards the
outside, until it ended in extremities capable of casting such a shadow
as fell from the hand, through the awful fingers of which I now saw the
moon. The hand was uplifted in the attitude of a paw about to strike
its prey. But the face, which throbbed with fluctuating and pulsatory
visibility--not from changes in the light it reflected, but from changes
in its own conditions of reflecting power, the alterations being from
within, not from without--it was horrible. I do not know how to describe
it. It caused a new sensation. Just as one cannot translate a horrible
odour, or a ghastly pain, or a fearful sound, into words, so I cannot
describe this new form of awful hideousness. I can only try to describe
something that is not it, but seems somewhat parallel to it; or at least
is suggested by it. It reminded me of what I had heard of vampires; for
the face resembled that of a corpse more than anything else I can
think of; especially when I can conceive such a face in motion, but
not suggesting any life as the source of the motion. The features were
rather handsome than otherwise, except the mouth, which had scarcely a
curve in it. The lips were of equal thickness; but the thickness was
not at all remarkable, even although they looked slightly swollen. They
seemed fixedly open, but were not wide apart. Of course I did not REMARK
these lineaments at the time: I was too horrified for that. I noted them
afterwards, when the form returned on my inward sight with a vividness
too intense to admit of my doubting the accuracy of the reflex. But the
most awful of the features were the eyes. These were alive, yet not with
life.

They seemed lighted up with an infinite greed. A gnawing voracity, which
devoured the devourer, seemed to be the indwelling and propelling power
of the whole ghostly apparition. I lay for a few moments simply imbruted
with terror; when another cloud, obscuring the moon, delivered me from
the immediately paralysing effects of the presence to the vision of the
object of horror, while it added the force of imagination to the power
of fear within me; inasmuch as, knowing far worse cause for apprehension
than before, I remained equally ignorant from what I had to defend
myself, or how to take any precautions: he might be upon me in the
darkness any moment. I sprang to my feet, and sped I knew not whither,
only away from the spectre. I thought no longer of the path, and often