United States or Nauru ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
It was a monumental staircase with broad, low steps, the incline being so gentle that a horse might easily have climbed it. The stone walls, however, were quite bare, the landings empty and solemn, and a death-like mournfulness fell from the lofty vault above. As they reached the first floor, noticing Pierre's emotion, Victorine smiled.
All he was allowed to see was a ghastly, death-like face and form, covered with rugs, lying prostrate on a mattress; but as he came in, at the sound of his step, there was a quiver of recognition, the eyes opened and looked up, the lips moved, and as Clement bent down with a kiss, there was a faint sound gasped out, "Telegraph to Clipstone." "I will, I will at once." "It was noble!"
The array of soldiers on both aides the river, along the dykes and upon the bridge, with banners waving, and spear and cuirass glancing in the lurid light; the demon fleet, guided by no human hand, wrapped in flames, and flitting through the darkness, with irregular movement; but portentous aspect, at the caprice of wind and tide; the death-like silence of expectation, which had succeeded the sound of trumpet and the shouts of the soldiers; and the weird glow which had supplanted the darkness-all combined with the sense of imminent and mysterious danger to excite and oppress the imagination.
The two-day fast and stubborn, death-like sleep had emptied his throbbing intestines, and given his natural defenses time to adapt and regain some measure of their innate strength. He was still very sick, but maybe now..... The words, 'Forgive me, played upon his lips but had an empty, useless feel. He went to the door, closed it, and though cold and aching he said to her.
But instead of that a deadly and death-like silence prevailed; and Raymond, who had quickened his steps as he neared the familiar spot, now involuntarily paused and hung back, as if half afraid of what he would be forced to look upon when once the last turning was passed. But Father Paul moved steadily on, turning neither to the right hand nor to the left.
Before she could move, he rushed over and drew her limp form from the chair, up into his strong embrace. She heard a voice, tender and gladsome, as from afar off, singing into her ear. "Look up, darling! This is to be our wedding day yours and mine! You are mine mine!" The glad light slowly struggled back into her eyes, but it was as if she had come from a death-like swoon.
The soft cloak slid away from her down the satin of her gown, and left her revealed in all her wedding whiteness, her eyes like stars, her beautiful face flushed excitedly. Then the eyes rested on the coffin and its death-like occupant and her face went white as her dress, while a great horror grew in her eyes. Brooks, more nearly sober than the rest, saw her first, and hastened to do the honors.
He felt his own flesh rot and decay, perishing from his limbs piece by piece; and he saw the coral banks, which it requires a thousand ages to form, rise slowly from their slimy bed; and spread atom by atom, till they became a shelter for the leviathan: their growth, was his only record of eternity; and ever and ever, around and above him, came vast and misshapen things the wonders of the secret deeps; and the sea-serpent, the huge chimera of the north, made its resting-place by his side, glaring upon him with a livid and death-like eye, wan, yet burning as an expiring seta.
Then, something impelled him to do the very thing he had decided would be fruitless. One bound took him through the piles of snow at the side of the road. The lawyer bent down, his heart tightening with fear. A human being lay close to the fence. Young quickly pulled the face into the moonlight. The quiet, death-like form was Tessibel Skinner.
So she lifted her up, and bearing her to the window applied the usual restoratives. As Julia looked on the death-like face of her young sister she murmured, "Had I thought she loved him so well, never would I have done so wickedly." But she made no promise to repair the mischief, and stifled all the better impulses of her nature by saying, "It is too late now: it is too late."
Word Of The Day