of the adjoining yew-trees, and upon the rounded grassy tombs.

Opening the gate, as he looked in that direction, Peter became aware of
a dark figure, enveloped in a large black cloak, and covered with a
slouched hat, standing at some distance, between the window and the
tree, and so intervening as to receive the full influence of the stream
of radiance which served to dilate its almost superhuman stature. The
sexton stopped. The figure remained stationary. There was something
singular both in the costume and situation of the person. Peter's
curiosity was speedily aroused, and, familiar with every inch of the
churchyard, he determined to take the nearest cut, and to ascertain to
whom the mysterious cloak and hat belonged. Making his way over the
undulating graves, and instinctively rounding the headstones that
intercepted his path, he quickly drew near the object of his inquiry.
From the moveless posture it maintained, the figure appeared to be
unconscious of Peter's approach. To his eyes it seemed to expand as he
advanced. He was now almost close upon it, when his progress was
arrested by a violent grasp laid on his shoulder. He started, and
uttered an exclamation of alarm. At this moment a vivid flash of
lightning illumined the whole churchyard, and Peter then thought he
beheld, at some distance from him, two other figures, bearing upon their
shoulders a huge chest, or, it might be, a coffin. The garb of these
figures, so far as it could be discerned through the drenching rain, was
fantastical in the extreme. The foremost seemed to have a long white
beard descending to his girdle. Little leisure, however, was allowed
Peter for observation. The vision no sooner met his glance than it
disappeared, and nothing was seen but the glimmering tombstones--nothing
heard but the whistling wind and the heavily-descending shower. He
rubbed his eyes. The muffled figure had vanished, and not a trace could
be discovered of the mysterious coffin-bearers, if such they were.

"What have I seen?" mentally ejaculated Peter: "is this sorcery or
treachery, or both? No body-snatchers would visit this place on a night
like this, when the whole neighborhood is aroused. Can it be a vision I
have seen? Pshaw! shall I juggle myself as I deceive these hinds? It was
no bearded demon that I beheld, but the gipsy patrico, Balthazar. I knew
him at once. But what meant that muffled figure; and whose arm could it
have been that griped my shoulder? Ha!