he unquiet glare in the downcast eyes of his
companions. Yet we laughed and were merry in our proper way--which was
hysterical; and sang the songs of Anacreon--which are madness; and drank
deeply--although the purple wine reminded us of blood. For there was yet
another tenant of our chamber in the person of young Zoilus. Dead,
and at full length he lay, enshrouded; the genius and the demon of the
scene. Alas! he bore no portion in our mirth, save that his countenance,
distorted with the plague, and his eyes, in which Death had but half
extinguished the fire of the pestilence, seemed to take such interest in
our merriment as the dead may haply take in the merriment of those who
are to die. But although I, Oinos, felt that the eyes of the departed
were upon me, still I forced myself not to perceive the bitterness of
their expression, and gazing down steadily into the depths of the ebony
mirror, sang with a loud and sonorous voice the songs of the son of
Teios. But gradually my songs they ceased, and their echoes, rolling
afar off among the sable draperies of the chamber, became weak, and
undistinguishable, and so faded away. And lo! from among those sable
draperies where the sounds of the song departed, there came forth a dark
and undefined shadow--a shadow such as the moon, when low in heaven,
might fashion from the figure of a man: but it was the shadow neither
of man nor of God, nor of any familiar thing. And quivering awhile among
the draperies of the room, it at length rested in full view upon the
surface of the door of brass. But the shadow was vague, and formless,
and indefinite, and was the shadow neither of man nor of God--neither
God of Greece, nor God of Chaldaea, nor any Egyptian God. And the shadow
rested upon the brazen doorway, and under the arch of the entablature of
the door, and moved not, nor spoke any word, but there became stationary
and remained. And the door whereupon the shadow rested was, if I
remember aright, over against the feet of the young Zoilus enshrouded.
But we, the seven there assembled, having seen the shadow as it came out
from among the draperies, dared not steadily behold it, but cast down
our eyes, and gazed continually into the depths of the mirror of ebony.
And at length I, Oinos, speaking some low words, demanded of the shadow
its dwelling and its appellation. And the shadow answered, "I am SHADOW,
and my dwelling is near to the Catacombs of Ptolemais, and hard by those
dim plains