I kept quite still and said nothing. For a whole hour I did not move a muscle, and in the meantime I
did not hear him lie down. He was still sitting up in the bed listening; --just as I have done, night after
night, hearkening to the death watches in the wall.
Presently I heard a slight groan, and I knew it was the groan of mortal terror. It was not a groan of
pain or of grief --oh, no! --it was the low stifled sound that arises from the bottom of the soul when
overcharged with awe. I knew the sound well. Many a night, just at midnight, when all the world
slept, it has welled up from my own bosom, deepening, with its dreadful echo, the terrors that
distracted me. I say I knew it well. I knew what the old man felt, and pitied him, although I chuckled
at heart. I knew that he had been lying awake ever since the first slight noise, when he had turned in
the bed. His fears had been ever since growing upon him. He had been trying to fancy them causeless,
but could not. He had been saying to himself --"It is nothing but the wind in the chimney --it is only a
mouse crossing the floor," or "It is merely a cricket which has made a single chirp." Yes, he had been
trying to comfort himself with these suppositions: but he had found all in vain. All in vain; because
Death, in approaching him had stalked with his black shadow before him, and enveloped the victim.
And it was the mournful influence of the unperceived shadow that caused him to feel --although he
neither saw nor heard --to feel the presence of my head within the room.
When I had waited a long time, very patiently, without hearing him lie down, I resolved to open a
little --a very, very little crevice in the lantern. So I opened it --you cannot imagine how stealthily,
stealthily --until, at length a single dim ray, like the thread of the spider, shot from out the crevice and
fell full upon the vulture eye.
It was open --wide, wide open --and I grew furious as I gazed upon it. I saw it with perfect
distinctness --all a dull blue, with a hideous veil over it that chilled the very marrow in my bones; but
I could see nothing else of the old man's face or person: for I had directed the ray as if by instinct,
precisely upon the damned spot.
And have I not told you that what you mistake for madness is but over acuteness of the senses? --now,
I say, there came to my ears a low, dull, quick sound, such as a watch makes when enveloped in
cotton. I knew that sound well, too. It was the beating of the old man's heart. It increased my fury, as
the beating of a drum stimulates the soldier into courage.
But even yet I refrained and kept still. I scarcely breathed. I held the lantern motionless. I tried how
steadily I could maintain the ray upon the eye. Meantime the hellish tattoo of the heart increased. It
grew quicker and quicker, and louder and louder every instant. The old man's terror must have been
extreme! It grew louder, I say, louder every moment! --do you mark me well? I have told you that I
am nervous: so I am. And now at the dead hour of the night, amid the dreadful silence of that old
house, so strange a noise as this excited me to uncontrollable terror. Yet, for some minutes longer I
refrained and stood still. But the beating grew louder, louder! I thought the heart must burst. And now
a new anxiety seized me --the sound would be heard by a neighbor! The old man's hour had come!
With a loud yell, I threw open the lantern and leaped into the room. He shrieked once --once only. In
an instant I dragged him to the floor, and pulled the heavy bed over him. I then smiled gaily, to find
the deed so far done. But, for many minutes, the heart beat on with a muffled sound. This, however,
did not vex me; it would not be heard through the wall. At length it ceased. The old man was dead. I
removed the bed and examined the corpse. Yes, he was stone, stone dead. I placed my hand upon the
heart and held it there many minutes. There was no pulsation. He was stone dead. His eye would
trouble me no more.
