of him. He plunged into it without hesitation, for the moonlight
was now in full flood and there might be sharp eyes about.

In the open spaces along the water-front grass grew thick and tall as in
a meadow, but in this narrow, crooked lane the wholesomer, sun-loving
plants found little encouragement to existence. In their stead,
pale-colored creepers mantled the house walls, and everywhere were moss
stains and the spore of the various fungoid growths. Constans's
footsteps fell hollowly upon the pavement slippery with weed and the
August damp, and as he walked along an unearthly radiance suddenly
illuminated his path; from every cornice and eaves-end hung balls of the
pale St. Elmo's fire; not a house but boasted its array of
corpse-candles that flickered with a greenish flame.

A terrifying sight, but harmless. Far more dangerous, could he have
known it, were the invisible but deadly gases from the century-old
corruption that rose to meet him and were unconsciously inhaled. Then,
as the fumes mounted to his brain, sober reason was ousted from her
throne and imagination rioted unchecked, peopling the void with horrors
and ineffectual phantoms. From the sashless windows grotesque faces
stared down upon him, scowling malignantly, while others, with still
more hideous smile, invited him to enter and become one of their
dreadful company. Insane laughter re-echoed in his ears, and the music
of lutes, irresistible in its languor-compelling potency. Already had
Constans stopped twice to listen, and upon each occasion he had been
obliged to exercise all his failing strength of body and mind to resume
his forward march. If he halted again it would be forever; of that he
felt perfectly assured, but neither the imminence nor the character of
the peril in which he stood seemed sufficient to arouse him from his
lethargy. Yet he kept on, walking with the shuffling stride of a
mechanical doll; now he wavered and hesitated, as though the propelling
spring had wellnigh run down. The night reek, hot and damp, hung like a
poisoned veil upon his mouth and lips; he could not breathe; he gasped
and threw up one arm as does a swimmer who looks his last upon a
pitiless sun and sky.

The wind had risen with the moon; it had been growing in strength, and
now a strong gust rattled among the chimney-pots. One fell with a crash,
and a tiny fragment of brick struck Constans on the check, cutting the
skin. The shock and the trickle of blood brough