He saw her for a second or two, heaving and writhing in the
putrid heap; and then the strong man reeled and fell with his
face on the ground, not feigning, but sick unto death. Of all
the dreadful things he had witnessed that night, there was
nothing so dreadful as this; of all the horror he had felt
before, there was none to equal what he felt now. In his
momentary delirium, it seemed to him she was reaching her arms of
bone up to drag him in, and that the skeleton-face was grinning
at him on the edge of the awful pit. And, covering his eyes with
his hands, he sprang up, and fled away.
CHAPTER XXII.
DAY-DAWN.
All this time, the attendant, George, had been sitting, very much
at his ease, on horseback, looking after Sir Norman's charger and
admiring the beauties of sunrise. He had seen Sir Norman in
conversation with a strange female, and not much liking his near
proximity to the plague-pit, was rather impatient for it to come
to an end; but when he saw the tragic manner in which it did end,
his consternation was beyond all bounds. Sir Norman, in his
horrified flight, would have fairly passed him unnoticed, had not
George arrested him by a loud shout.
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