Page:Artabanzanus (Ferrar, 1896).djvu/95

The music instantly ceased, and I opened my eyes wide. I was not in heaven, and could see no light of day. Despair, with gruesome face, darted into the centre of my heart. I was in a low vaulted room, which was dimly lit by a solitary lamp standing on a black table which was placed beside my bed. An open door at the foot of the bed communicated with a larger and better lit apartment, and while I gazed into it with intense curiosity, I heard an extraordinary noise for which I could not possibly account. It was like the scuffling of a number of cats, or dogs, or other creatures, scurrying out in haste at a narrow doorway. While my eyes were thus fixed, I was startled by an apparition, one of the very last I expected to see in that place. A man, or an angel in disguise perhaps, strangely and grotesquely dressed it is true, but middle aged, fresh coloured, and handsome in countenance, with a benevolent smile of interest and encouragement, in figure straight and perfect as a guardsman, in appearance portly and dignified, stood there gazing upon me. He was dressed in an old-fashioned suit of clothes of various colours—old-fashioned I may well say, as no living person has ever seen the fashion, except, perhaps, at a fancy dress ball. He wore a once elegant Vandyke costume, toned down to the style of Charles the Second's time, much faded and the worse for wear, and in many places stained with blood. A buff jerkin, with red sleeves and shoulder bands, a short doublet of green satin open in front where, down to his waistband, the remains of a rich shirt could be seen, petticoat breeches adorned with ribbons down the sides, lace collar and ruffles at his wrists; a cloak hanging at his left shoulder, and a Spanish rapier by his side, made up a costume which I contemplated with unspeakable pleasure, from the contrast between it and that worn by some of the fiends I had recently seen. Instead of a high-crowned hat he wore a strange-looking yellow