Abandoning my efforts to undo my boot-laces—which appeared to have been knotted with such diabolical cunning that they might have been tied by King Gordius himself—I extinguished the bed lamp and collapsed backwards onto my pillow. To my great surprise and consternation, however, the beneficent god Somnus did not immediately hold out to me his cup of sweet nepenthe. Recumbent upon the great canopied bed, I lay open-eyed in the unfamiliar darkness, while—all about me—a profusion of bizarre and lurid apparitions seemed to swirl madly about in mid-air, as though engaged in the delirious revelry of a wild and unrestrained masque.

At length, these riotous spectres merged into the no less vivid phantasms of dream. I sank into a fitful slumber. How long I remained in this unconscious state, I cannot say with precision, I am certain of only one thing—that, at some later point in that harrowing night, I awoke from my sleep with a stifled gasp of horror—possessed by the sudden and absolute conviction that I was no longer alone in the chamber!

At first I was too frightened to employ my vision, Motionlessly, I lay with my eyes closed tight, attempting to persuade myself that I was merely imagining the presence of another being in the room. At length, I forced my shuttered lids apart. How shall I attempt to convey the utter—the inexpressible—terror that gripped me at the confirmation of my awful apprehension?

A dark and ominous figure loomed at the foot of my bed. Biting my lower lip to prevent myself from crying aloud, I lay there in an agony of mortal dread. Perhaps, thought I, the figure was merely another airy, alcohol-induced chimera. But no! It was far too real—far too substantial—to be an illusion. Besides, though my head throbbed with pain, I could tell that I had largely recovered from the effects of my intemperance and was once again in full possession of my senses!

For what seemed like an eternity (though it could not have been longer than a few moments) I remained rigidly immobile, hardly daring to breathe. Neither Asher nor Crockett had thought to draw the draperies of the single window in the room; and now, through the unobstructed panes, a flood of moonlight came spilling inside—the cloud-covered sky having evidently cleared up at long last. As my vision grew adapted to the luminary conditions of the chamber, I could see with increasing clarity that the intruder was—a woman!