s other hand, drove at it as though
he held a knife and stabbed it to the heart. He clutched his hair,
and stopped his ears, and travelled madly round and round; then gave a
frightful cry, and with it rushed away: still, still, the Bell tolled on
and seemed to follow him--louder and louder, hotter and hotter yet.
The glare grew brighter, the roar of voices deeper; the crash of heavy
bodies falling, shook the air; bright streams of sparks rose up into the
sky; but louder than them all--rising faster far, to Heaven--a million
times more fierce and furious--pouring forth dreadful secrets after its
long silence--speaking the language of the dead--the Bell--the Bell!

What hunt of spectres could surpass that dread pursuit and flight! Had
there been a legion of them on his track, he could have better borne it.
They would have had a beginning and an end, but here all space was full.
The one pursuing voice was everywhere: it sounded in the earth, the air;
shook the long grass, and howled among the trembling trees. The
echoes caught it up, the owls hooted as it flew upon the breeze, the
nightingale was silent and hid herself among the thickest boughs:
it seemed to goad and urge the angry fire, and lash it into madness;
everything was steeped in one prevailing red; the glow was everywhere;
nature was drenched in blood: still the remorseless crying of that awful
voice--the Bell, the Bell!

It ceased; but not in his ears. The knell was at his heart. No work of
man had ever voice like that which sounded there, and warned him that it
cried unceasingly to Heaven. Who could hear that hell, and not know what
it said! There was murder in its every note--cruel, relentless, savage
murder--the murder of a confiding man, by one who held his every trust.
Its ringing summoned phantoms from their graves. What face was that,
in which a friendly smile changed to a look of half incredulous horror,
which stiffened for a moment into one of pain, then changed again into
an imploring glance at Heaven, and so fell idly down with upturned
eyes, like the dead stags' he had often peeped at when a little child:
shrinking and shuddering--there was a dreadful thing to think of
now!--and clinging to an apron as he looked! He sank upon the ground,
and grovelling down as if he would dig himself a place to hide in,
covered his face and ears: but no, no, no,--a hundred walls and roofs of
brass would not shut out that bell, for in it spoke the wrathful voice
of G