wn its garment. Its pale face was gashed and gory! its
eyes fixed, glazed, and glaring;--its lips open, its teeth set, and in
its hand was a bloody dagger.

Melissa, uttering a shriek of terror, shrunk into the bed, and in an
instant the room was involved in pitchy darkness. A freezing ague seized
her limbs, and drops of chilling sweat stood upon her face. Immediately
a horrid hoarse voice burst from amidst the gloom of her apartment,
"_Begone! begone from this house!_" The bed on which she lay then seemed
to be agitated, and directly she perceived some person crawling on its
foot. Every consideration, except present safety, was relinquished;
instantaneously she sprang from the bed to the floor--with convulsed
grasp, seized the candle, flew to the fire and lighted it. She gazed
wildly around the room--no new object was visible. With timid step she
approached the bed; she strictly searched all around and under it, but
nothing strange could be found. A thought darted into her mind to leave
the house immediately and fly to John's: this was easy, as the keys of
the gate and draw-bridge were in her possession. She stopped not to
reconsider her determination, but seizing the keys, with the candle in
her hand, she unlocked her chamber door, and proceeded cautiously down
stairs, fearfully casting her eyes on each side, as she tremblingly
advanced to the outer door. She hesitated a moment. To what perils was
she about to expose herself, by thus venturing out at the dead of the
night, and proceeding such a distance alone? Her situation she thought
could become no more hazardous, and she was about to unbar the door,
when she was alarmed by a deep, hollow sigh. She looked around and saw,
stretched on one side of the hall, the same ghastly form which had so
recently appeared standing by her bedside. The same haggard countenance,
the same awful appearance of murderous death. A faintness came upon her;
she turned to flee to her chamber--the candle dropped from her trembling
hand, and she was shrouded in impenetrable darkness. She groped to find
the stairs: as she came near their foot, a black object, apparently in
human shape, stood before her, with eyes which seemed to burn like coals
of fire, and red flames issuing from its mouth. As she stood fixed a
moment in inexpressible trepidation, a large ball of fire rolled along
the hall, towards the door, and burst with an explosion which seemed to
rock the building to its deepest foundatio