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period which intervened I had no positive, at least no definite
comprehension. Yet its memory was replete with horror--horror more
horrible from being vague, and terror more terrible from ambiguity. It
was a fearful page in the record my existence, written all over with
dim, and hideous, and unintelligible recollections. I strived to
decypher them, but in vain; while ever and anon, like the spirit of a
departed sound, the shrill and piercing shriek of a female voice seemed
to be ringing in my ears. I had done a deed--what was it? I asked myself
the question aloud, and the whispering echoes of the chamber answered
me,--"what was it?"
On the table beside me burned a lamp, and near it lay a little box. It
was of no remarkable character, and I had seen it frequently before, for
it was the property of the family physician; but how came it there,
upon my table, and why did I shudder in regarding it? These things were
in no manner to be accounted for, and my eyes at length dropped to the
open pages of a book, and to a sentence underscored therein. The words
were the singular but simple ones of the poet Ebn Zaiat:--"Dicebant
mihi sodales si sepulchrum amicae visitarem, curas meas aliquantulum
fore levatas." Why then, as I perused them, did the hairs of my head
erect themselves on end, and the blood of my body become congealed
within my veins?
There came a light tap at the library door--and, pale as the tenant of a
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