ve I entered a sepulchre which ever
gave me such an infinite horror of death, or such a realisation of its
terrors.

The end of the cavern was nothing but a wall of ice, clear as glass,
admitting a soft light which illuminated the whole place with dim rays,
making it a place of mystery and awe. Yet I had not noticed its more
dreadful aspect at the first coming; and, when I did so, I gave a cry
of horror and turned away my face, fearing to see again that most
overwhelming spectacle. For blocks had been cut from the clear ice, and
the dead seamen had been laid in the frozen mass just as they had died,
without coffin or other covering than their clothes. There they lay,
their faces upturned, many of them displaying all the placid
peacefulness of death; but some grinned with horrible grimaces, and the
eyes of some started from their heads, and there were teeth that seemed
to be biting into the ice, and hands clenched as though the fierce
activity of life pursued them beyond the veil. Yet the frightful
mausoleum, the den of death, was pure in its atmosphere as a garden of
snow, cool as grass after rain, silent as a tomb of the sea. Not a
sound even of dripping water, not a motion of life without, not a sigh
or dull echo disturbed its repose. Only the dead with hands uplifted,
the dead in frozen rest, the dead with the smile of death, or the hate
of death, or the terror of death written upon their faces, seemed to
watch and to wait in the chamber of the sepulchre.

I have said that the sight terrified me; yet the whole of my fear I
could not write, though the pen of Death himself were in my hands. So
profoundly did the agony of it appeal to me that for many minutes
together I dare not raise my eyes, could scarce restrain myself from
flying, leaving the dreadful picture to those that should care to gaze
upon it. Yet its spell was too terrible, the morbid magnetism of it too
potent; and I looked again and again, and turned away, and looked yet
once more; and went to the ice to gaze more closely at the dead faces,
and was so carried away with the trance of it that I seemed to forget
the dead men, and thought that they lived. When I recalled myself, I
observed Doctor Osbart watching me intently.

"A strange place, isn't it?" he said. "Observe it closely, for some day
you will be here with the others."

I shuddered at his thought, and muttered, "God forbid!"

"Why?" he asked, hearing it. "It's not a very fearful thing to
con