All the gentlemen present then declared that they could comprehend, and had felt, what the stranger had described.
"According to one of our national superstitions," said Mervale, the Englishman who had first addressed Glyndon, "the moment you so feel your blood creep, and your hair stand on end, some one is walking over the spot which shall be your grave."
"There are in all lands different superstitions to account for so common an occurrence," replied the stranger: "one sect among the Arabians holds that at that instant God is deciding the hour either of your death, or of some one dear to you. The African savage, whose imagination is darkened by the hideous rites of his gloomy idolatry, believes that the Evil Spirit is pulling you towards him by the hair: so do the Grotesque and the Terrible mingle with each other."
"It is evidently a mere physical accident — a derangement of the stomach — a chill of the blood," said a young Neapolitan, with whom Glyndon had formed a slight acquaintance.
"Then why is it always coupled in all nations with some superstitious presentiment or terror — some connection between the material frame and the supposed world without us? For my part, I think"
"Ay, what do you think, sir?" asked Glyndon, curiously.
"I think," continued the stranger, "that it is the repugnance and horror with which our more human elements recoil from something, indeed, invisible, but
