The scene at this moment approached the
supernatural. The wild disorder of the richly laden tables; the wine
flowing over the floor from overthrown vases; the great lamps burning
bright and steady over the confusion beneath; the fierce gestures, the
disordered countenances of the revellers, as they waved their jewelled
cups over their heads in frantic triumph; and then the gloomy and
terrific prospect at the lower end of the hall--the black curtain, the
light burning solitary on its high pole, the dead boy lying across the
festal table, the living master standing by his side, and, like an evil
spirit, pointing upward in mockery to the white-robed corpse of the
woman, as it towered above all in its unnatural position, with its
skinny arms stretched forth, with its ghastly features appearing to move
as the faint and flickering light played over them,--produced together
such a combination of scarce-earthly objects as might be painted, but
cannot be described. It was an embodiment of a sorcerer's vision--an
apocalypse of sin triumphing over the world's last relics of mortality
in the vaults of death.
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