There it cowered on the floor beside his design; and lo! the figures seemed to start from the wall! Those pale accusing figures, the shapes he himself had raised, frowned at him, and gibbered.

With a violent effort that convulsed his whole being, and bathed his body in the sweat of agony, the young man mastered his horror.

He strode towards the phantom; he endured its eyes; he accosted it with a steady voice; he demanded its purpose and defied its power.
And then, as a wind from a charnel, was heard its voice.

What it said, what revealed, it is forbidden the lips to repeat, the hand to record.
Nothing save the subtle life that yet animated the frame to which the inhalations of the elixir had given vigour and energy beyond the strength of the strongest, could have survived that awful hour.

Better to wake in the catacombs and see the buried rise from their cerements, and hear the ghouls, in their horrid orgies, amongst the festering ghastliness of corruption, than to front those features when the veil was lifted, and listen to that whispered voice! ....
The next day Glyndon fled from the ruined castle.