A rattle of the window, a cry of the blast only replied---Sleep never came! I err.

She came once, but in anger.

Impatient of my importunity she brought with her an avenging dream.

By the clock of St.Jean Baptiste, that dream remained scarce fifteen minutes--a brief space, but sufficing to wring my whole frame with unknown anguish; to confer a nameless experience that had the hue, the mien, the terror, the very tone of a visitation from eternity.

Between twelve and one that night a cup was forced to my lips, black, strong, strange, drawn from no well, but filled up seething from a bottomless and boundless sea.