But they were live wills, and would
not be overcome. They forced their gaze; perception cleared itself;
and slowly they saw and understood.
With strangest dream-like incongruity and unfitness, the thing
beside them was a dark bedstead, with carved posts and low wooden
tester, richly carved!--This in the middle of a chapel!--But there
was no speculation in them; they could only see, not think. Donal
took the candle. From the tester hung large pieces of stuff that had
once made heavy curtains, but seemed hardly now to have as much
cohesion as the dust on a cobweb; it held together only in virtue of
the lightness to which decay had reduced it. On the bed lay a dark
mass, like bed clothes and bedding not quite turned to dust--they
could yet see something like embroidery in one or two places--dark
like burnt paper or half-burnt flaky rags, horrid as a dream of dead
love!
Heavens! what was that shape in the middle?--what was that on the
black pillow?--what was that thick line stretching towards one of
the head-posts? They stared speechless. Arctura pressed close to
Donal. His arm went round her to protect her from what threatened
almost to overwhelm himself--the inroad of an unearthly horror.
Plain to the eyes of both, the form in the middle of the bed was
that of a human body, slowly crumbling where it lay. Bed and
blankets and quilt, sheets and pillows had crumbled with it through
the long wasting years, but something of its old shape yet lingered
with the dust: that was a head that lay on the pillow; that was the
line of a long arm that pointed across the pillow to the post.
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