A female figure ascended the flight with slow and cautious steps. She
paused on the gallery, she looked around, one foot was in the chamber.
She entered. She entered a chamber of small dimensions, but richly
adorned. In the farthest corner was a couch of ivory, hung with a gauzy
curtain of silver tissue, which, without impeding respiration, protected
the slumberer from the fell insects of an Oriental night. Leaning
against an ottoman was a large brazen shield of ancient fashion, and
near it some helmets and curious weapons.
'An irresistible impulse hath carried me into this chamber!' exclaimed
the prophetess. 'The light haunted me like a spectre; and wheresoever I
moved, it seemed to summon me.
'A couch and a slumberer!'
She approached the object, she softly withdrew the curtain. Pale and
panting, she rushed back, yet with a light step. She beheld Alroy!
For a moment she leant against the wall, overpowered by her emotions.
Again she advanced, and gazed on her unconscious victim.
'Can the guilty sleep like the innocent? Who would deem this gentle
slumberer had betrayed the highest trust that ever Heaven vouchsafed to
favoured man? He looks not like a tyrant and a traitor: calm his brow,
and mild his placid breath! His long dark hair, dark as the raven's
wing, hath broken from its fillet, and courses, like a wild and stormy
night, over his pale and moon-lit brow.
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