e entire apartment, while at another it would become
invisible, but always leaving behind it a distinct consciousness of its
presence. Its voice, when it spoke, was quavering and gusty. It said,
"I am the leaver of footsteps and the spiller of gouts of blood. I
tramp upon corridors. Charles Dickens has alluded to me. I make
strange and disagreeable noises. I snatch letters and place invisible
hands on people's wrists. I am cheerful. I burst into peals of
hideous laughter. Shall I do one now?" I raised my hand in a
deprecating way, but too late to prevent one discordant outbreak which
echoed through the room. Before I could lower it the apparition was
gone.

I turned my head toward the door in time to see a man come hastily and
stealthily into the chamber. He was a sunburned, powerfully built
fellow, with ear-rings in his ears and a Barcelona handkerchief tied
loosely round his neck. His head was bent upon his chest, and his
whole aspect was that of one afflicted by intolerable remorse. He
paced rapidly backward and forward like a caged tiger, and I observed
that a drawn knife glittered in one of his hands, while he grasped what
appeared to be a piece of parchment in the other. His voice, when he
spoke, was deep and sonorous. He said, "I am a murderer. I am a
ruffian. I crouch when I walk. I step noiselessly. I know something
of the Spanish Main. I can do the lost treasure business. I have
charts. Am able-bodied and a good walker. Capable of haunting a large
park." He looked toward me beseechingly, but before I could make a
sign I was paralyzed by the horrible sight which appeared at the door.

It was a very tall man, if, indeed, it might be called a man, for the
gaunt bones were protruding through the corroding flesh, and the
features were of a leaden hue. A winding-sheet was wrapped round the
figure, and formed a hood over the head, from under the shadow of which
two fiendish eyes, deepset in their grisly sockets, blazed and sparkled
like red-hot coals. The lower jaw had fallen upon the breast,
disclosing a withered, shriveled tongue and two lines of black and
jagged fangs. I shuddered and drew back as this fearful apparition
advanced to the edge of the circle.

"I am the American blood-curdler," it said, in a voice which seemed to
come in a hollow murmur from the earth beneath it. "None other is
genuine. I am the embodiment of Edgar Allan Poe. I am circumstantial
and horrible. I am a