Perspiration burst from every pore of my body, and stood in icy beads upon my forehead. All at once, the dark figure began to move—or, rather, float—toward the head of my bed. Closer and closer it drew, until it seemed to hover directly above me. It bent nearer to my pillow, until I could feel its soft breath upon my face. At that instant, its own countenance was illuminated by the in-flooding moonlight, and I gazed up at its features with a feeling of utter disbelief and incomprehension.

A numbness—an iciness of feeling—pervaded my frame. I gasped for breath. My breast heaved—my brain reeled—and my whole spirit was possessed with a vague yet intolerable anguish.

With a wild cry of terror, I half-started from my pillow—then fell backwards and lapsed into a swoon!

CHAPTER 12

How long I remained in my terror-induced swoon I am unable to say. I can only recall a period of utter oblivion, followed by a long—unsettling—and uncannily vivid dream which gradually took shape within the depths of my mind. I was alone on a desolate tropical isle, where the scorching sun beat down with merciless intensity. All at once, I became aware of a strange noise: a low, ominous rumble that grew steadily louder, building to a thunderous crescendo. Glancing around in wonderment and fright, I perceived—in the near distance—the cone of a mountainous volcano, out of whose flattened apex there suddenly erupted a thick column of glowing sparks, followed by a fountain of seething red lava. The ground beneath my feet began to tremble, then shake with all the violence of a cataclysmic earthquake. My whole body began to vibrate in tune with this explosive display of natures fury. Suddenly, from out of the subterranean depths of the volcano, a great booming voice—like that of a pagan deity—began to issue stern and occult commandments.

It was only then that I became aware that I was partially awake. My dream was not a dream at all! The sweltering heat was real So, too, was the violent shaking of my frame. And the voice—whose timbre and inflection I now recognized as peculiarly familiar—was addressing me in loud and insistent words:

“Poe! Wake up! The goldamned house is afire!”

My eyes shot open. A few feet away, I could perceive the face of Colonel Crockett. His skin was slick with perspiration—his dark locks matted and dishevelled—his features wrought into an expression of grim urgency. My senses were still sufficiently bedazed that a few moments elapsed before I became fully conscious of several anomalous circumstances—the lurid, flickering illumination by which I was able to discern Crockett’s face in the darkness of the room—the acrid smoke which stung my eyes and assaulted my nostrils—the crackling sound emanating from just outside the room. Only then did the full—the fearful—the blood-chilling—truth smite my awareness like a thunderbolt.