The dull, black, frowzy outline of the valance above me was within an inch of being parallel with his waist.

I still looked breathlessly.

And steadily and slowly--very slowly--I saw the figure, and the line of frame below the figure, vanish, as the valance moved down before it.
I am, constitutionally, anything but timid.

I have been on more than one occasion in peril of my life, and have not lost my self-possession for an instant; but when the conviction first settled on my mind that the bed-top was really moving, was steadily and continuously sinking down upon me, I looked up shuddering, helpless, panic-stricken, beneath the hideous machinery for murder, which was advancing closer and closer to suffocate me where I lay.
I looked up, motionless, speechless, breathless.

The candle, fully spent, went out; but the moonlight still brightened the room.