been a sufficient
portion for six men, and was now paying a frightful penalty for my
curiosity. The excited blood rushed through my frame with a sound like the
roaring of mighty waters. It was projected into my eyes until I could no
longer see; it beat thickly in my ears, and so throbbed in my heart, that
I feared the ribs would give way under its blows. I tore open my vest,
placed my hand over the spot, and tried to count the pulsations; but there
were two hearts, one beating at the rate of a thousand beats a minute, and
the other with a slow, dull motion. My throat, I thought, was filled to
the brim with blood, and streams of blood were pouring from my ears. I
felt them gushing warm down my cheeks and neck. With a maddened, desperate
feeling, I fled from the room, and walked over the flat, terraced roof of
the house. My body seemed to shrink and grow rigid as I wrestled with the
demon, and my face to become wild, lean and haggard. Some lines which had
struck me, years before, in reading Mrs. Browning's "Rhyme of the Duchess
May," flashed into my mind:--

"And the horse, in stark despair, with his front hoofs poised in air,
On the last verge, rears amain;
And he hangs, he rocks between--and his nostrils curdle in--
And he shivers, head and hoof, and the flakes of foam fall off;
And his face grows fierce and thin."

That picture of animal terror and agony was mine. I was the horse,
hanging poised on the verge of the giddy tower, the next moment to be
borne sheer down to destruction. Involuntarily, I raised my hand to feel
the leanness and sharpness of my face. Oh horror! the flesh had fallen
from my bones, and it was a skeleton head that I carried on my shoulders!
With one bound I sprang to the parapet, and looked down into the silent
courtyard, then filled with the shadows thrown into it by the sinking
moon. Shall I cast myself down headlong? was the question I proposed to
myself; but though the horror of that skeleton delusion was greater than
my fear of death, there was an invisible hand at my breast which pushed me
away from the brink.

I made my way back to the room, in a state of the keenest suffering. My
companion was still a locomotive, rushing to and fro, and jerking out his
syllables with the disjointed accent peculiar to a steam-engine. His mouth
had turned to brass, like mine, and he raised the pitcher to his lips in
the attempt to moisten it, but before he had taken a mouthful, set the
pit