Thinking it to be merely a vision which would vanish at once, he opened his eyes, and beheld a withered, emaciated face bending over him, and gazing straight into his own.

Long coal-black hair, unkempt, dishevelled, fell from beneath a dark veil which had been thrown over the head; whilst the strange gleam of the eyes, and the death-like tone of the sharp-cut features, inclined him to think that it was an apparition.

His hand involuntarily grasped his gun; and he exclaimed almost convulsively: "Who are you?
If you are an evil spirit, avaunt! If you are a living being, you have chosen an ill time for your jest.

I will kill you with one shot." In answer to this, the apparition laid its finger upon its lips and seemed to entreat silence.

He dropped his hands and began to look more attentively.