roach. With feelings
strangely akin to those of an ill-fated victim, urged by some
resistless fascination into the very jaws of his destroyer, I drew
nearer to the object of my hopes and apprehensions. I recognised the
very dress my uncle wore on ordinary occasions, and the strong
square-built form that in my childhood I was accustomed to view with a
parental regard. Yet was I disquieted with alarm and agitation.
Horrible images rushed upon my brain. I seemed to be the sport and
prey of some power I could not withstand--a power that apparently
might wield my very faculties at his will, and had already taken the
reins of self-government into his own keeping. I began to fancy that
it was some terrible vision by which I was harassed; and I well
remember it was the precise feeling that haunts us in our dreams when
a horrible doom is approaching from which apparently there is no
escape; and yet we feel as though assured some way will be opened for
our deliverance. While we endure all the horrors of our situation, we
know of a surety that our miseries shall soon terminate. Yet a cloud
was gathering upon my soul, and objects assumed another hue seen
through its wild and chaotic elements. With all the vagueness and
uncertainty of a dream, I felt that I was awake!

"'Dost thou know me?' said the mysterious inquirer, in a tone which I
immediately recognised. Still there was an awful and thrilling
emphasis in the expression which alarmed me more than before.

"'I know you,' I replied, 'as the friend and guardian of my youth;
but--to what end am I called hither, and why are you thus?'

"'My path is hidden!' said he, in a voice terrible and foreboding.

"'Tell me, where have you been? Is this your habitation?
unless'--shuddering, I added in a low but energetic tone--'unless you
are some evil one that hath ta'en his semblance to lure me to my
hurt.'

"'When the moon rides o'er the blue south 'tis midnight; I will then
reveal what thou hast desired, and the purpose of my coming.'

"'Art thou really he whose form thou bearest? Answer truly, as thou
dost hope for my stay.'

"'I am!' he replied, in a tone so like that of my uncle that I was now
satisfied his very form was before me. Conjecture was vain as to the
motives that prompted this long and extraordinary concealment.

"'Promise, Norton, that thou wilt tarry here until my return!'

"'I will; but give me some pledge, some proof that thy being is real;
that thou comest not