length there broke in upon my
dreams a cry as of horror and dismay; and thereunto, after a pause,
succeeded the sound of troubled voices, intermingled with many low
moanings of sorrow or of pain. I arose from my seat, and throwing open
one of the doors of the library, saw standing out in the ante-chamber
a servant maiden, all in tears, who told me that Berenice was--no more!
She had been seized with epilepsy in the early morning, and now, at the
closing in of the night, the grave was ready for its tenant, and all the
preparations for the burial were completed.

* * * * *

I found myself sitting in the library, and again sitting there alone. It
seemed that I had newly awakened from a confused and exciting dream.
I knew that it was now midnight, and I was well aware, that since the
setting of the sun, Berenice had been interred. But of that dreary
period which intervened I had no positive, at least no definite
comprehension. Yet its memory was replete with horror--horror more
horrible from being vague, and terror more terrible from ambiguity. It
was a fearful page in the record my existence, written all over with
dim, and hideous, and unintelligible recollections. I strived to
decypher them, but in vain; while ever and anon, like the spirit of a
departed sound, the shrill and piercing shriek of a female voice seemed
to be ringing in my ears. I had done a deed--what was it? I asked myself
the question aloud, and the whispering echoes of the chamber answered
me,--"_what was it?_"

On the table beside me burned a lamp, and near it lay a little box. It
was of no remarkable character, and I had seen it frequently before, for
it was the property of the family physician; but how came it _there_,
upon my table, and why did I shudder in regarding it? These things were
in no manner to be accounted for, and my eyes at length dropped to the
open pages of a book, and to a sentence underscored therein. The words
were the singular but simple ones of the poet Ebn Zaiat:--"_Dicebant
mihi sodales si sepulchrum amicae visitarem, curas meas aliquantulum
fore levatas_." Why then, as I perused them, did the hairs of my head
erect themselves on end, and the blood of my body become congealed
within my veins?

There came a light tap at the library door--and, pale as the tenant of a
tomb, a menial entered upon tiptoe. His looks were wild with terror,
and he spoke to me in a voice tremulous, husky, and very low. What said
he?--some broken sent