dawn and speed into the country. When this night is remembered,
how like a vision will it appear! If I tell the tale by a kitchen-fire,
my veracity will be disputed. I shall be ranked with the story-tellers
of Shiraz and Bagdad."

Though busied in these reflections, I was not inattentive to the
progress of time. Methought my companion was remarkably dilatory. He
went merely to relight his candle, but certainly he might, during this
time, have performed the operation ten times over. Some unforeseen
accident might occasion his delay.

Another interval passed, and no tokens of his coming. I began now to
grow uneasy. I was unable to account for his detention. Was not some
treachery designed? I went to the door, and found that it was locked.
This heightened my suspicions. I was alone, a stranger, in an upper room
of the house. Should my conductor have disappeared, by design or by
accident, and some one of the family should find me here, what would be
the consequence? Should I not be arrested as a thief, and conveyed to
prison? My transition from the street to this chamber would not be more
rapid than my passage hence to a jail.

These ideas struck me with panic. I revolved them anew, but they only
acquired greater plausibility. No doubt I had been the victim of
malicious artifice. Inclination, however, conjured up opposite
sentiments, and my fears began to subside. What motive, I asked, could
induce a human being to inflict wanton injury? I could not account for
his delay; but how numberless were the contingencies that might occasion
it!

I was somewhat comforted by these reflections, but the consolation they
afforded was short-lived. I was listening with the utmost eagerness to
catch the sound of a foot, when a noise was indeed heard, but totally
unlike a step. It was human breath struggling, as it were, for passage.
On the first effort of attention, it appeared like a groan. Whence it
arose I could not tell. He that uttered it was near; perhaps in the
room.

Presently the same noise was again heard, and now I perceived that it
came from the bed. It was accompanied with a motion like some one
changing his posture. What I at first conceived to be a groan appeared
now to be nothing more than the expiration of a sleeping man. What
should I infer from this incident? My companion did not apprize me that
the apartment was inhabited. Was his imposture a jestful or a wicked
one?

There was no need to deliberate. There were