"I am resolved to see the end of it." "Don't leave me behind," returned Chowles, following her.

"I would rather keep company with Beelzebub and all his imps than be alone." Both were too well acquainted with the way to need any light.

Ascending the broad stone steps, they presently emerged into the cathedral, which they found illumined by the same glimmering light as the lower church, and they perceived the ghostly assemblage gathered into an immense ring, and dancing round the tall skeleton, who continued beating his drum, and uttering a strange gibbering sound, which was echoed by the others.

Each moment the dancers increased the swiftness of their pace, until at last it grew to a giddy whirl, and then, all at once, with a shriek of laughter, the whole company fell to the ground.
Chowles and Judith, then, for the first time, understood, from the confusion that ensued, and the exclamations uttered, that they were no spirits they had to deal with, but beings of the same mould as themselves.

Accordingly, they approached the party of masquers, for such they proved, and found on inquiry that they were a party of young gallants, who, headed by the Earl of Rochester--the representative of the tall skeleton--had determined to realize the Dance of Death, as once depicted on the walls of an ancient cloister at the north of the cathedral, called Pardon-churchyard, on the walls of which, says Stowe, were "artificially and richly painted the Dance of Macabre, or Dance of Death, commonly called the Dance of Paul's, the like whereof was painted about Saint Innocent's, at Paris.