ycle, supported by a lamp-post which
his arms clasped, he proving clearly the extraordinary suddenness of the
death which had overtaken them all.

I did not know whither, nor why, I went, nor had I the least idea
whether all this was visually seen by me in the world which I had known,
or in some other, or was all phantasy of my disembodied spirit--for I
had the thought that I, too, might be dead since old ages, and my spirit
wandering now through the universe of space, in which there is neither
north nor south, nor up nor down, nor measure nor relation, nor aught
whatever, save an uneasy consciousness of a dream about bottomlessness.
Of grief or pain, I think, I felt nothing; though I have a sort of
memory now that some sound, resembling a sob or groan, though it was
neither, came at regular clockwork intervals from my bosom during three
or four days. Meantime, my brain registered like a tape-machine details
the most frivolous, the most ludicrous--the name of a street, Strond
Street, Snargate Street; the round fur cap--black fur for the side,
white ermine for the top--of a portly Karaite priest on his back, whose
robes had been blown to his spread knees, as if lifted and neatly folded
there; a violin-bow gripped between the thick, irregular teeth of a
little Spaniard with brushed-back hair and mad-looking eyes; odd shoes
on the foot of a French girl, one black, one brown. They lay in the
street about as numerous as gunners who fall round their carriage, at
intervals of five to ten feet, the majority--as was the case also in
Norway, and on the ships--in poses of distraction, with spread arms, or
wildly distorted limbs, like men who, the instant before death, called
upon the rocks and hills to cover them.

* * * * *

On the left I came to an opening in the land, called, I believe, 'The
Shaft,' and into this I turned, climbing a very great number of steps,
almost covered at one point with dead: the steps I began to count, but
left off, then the dead, and left off. Finally, at the top, which must
be even higher than the Castle, I came to a great open space laid out
with gravel-walks, and saw fortifications, barracks, a citadel. I did
not know the town, except by passings-through, and was surprised at the
breadth of view. Between me and the Castle to the east lay the district
of crowding houses, brick and ragstone, mixed in the distance with vague
azure haze; and to the right the harbour, the