Its pendulum swung to
      and fro with a dull, heavy, monotonous clang; and when the
      minute-hand made the circuit of the face, and the hour was to be
      stricken, there came from the brazen lungs of the clock a sound
      which was clear and loud and deep and exceedingly musical, but of
      so peculiar a note and emphasis that, at each lapse of an hour,
      the musicians of the orchestra were constrained to pause,
      momentarily, in their performance, to hearken to the sound; and
      thus the waltzers perforce ceased their evolutions; and there was
      a brief disconcert of the whole gay company; and, while the
      chimes of the clock yet rang, it was observed that the giddiest
      grew pale, and the more aged and sedate passed their hands over
      their brows as if in confused reverie or meditation. But when the
      echoes had fully ceased, a light laughter at once pervaded the
      assembly; the musicians looked at each other and smiled as if at
      their own nervousness and folly, and made whispering vows, each
      to the other, that the next chiming of the clock should produce
      in them no similar emotion; and then, after the lapse of sixty
      minutes (which embrace three thousand and six hundred seconds of
      the Time that flies), there came yet another chiming of the
      clock, and then were the same disconcert and tremulousness and
      meditation as before. But, in spite of these things, it was a gay and magnificent
      revel. The tastes of the duke were peculiar. He had a fine eye
      for colors and effects. He disregarded the decora of mere
      fashion. His plans were bold and fiery, and his conceptions
      glowed with barbaric lustre. There are some who would have
      thought him mad. His followers felt that he was not. It was
      necessary to hear and see and touch him to be sure that he was
      not. He had directed, in great part, the moveable embellishments of
      the seven chambers, upon occasion of this great fête; and it was
      his own guiding taste which had given character to the
      masqueraders. Be sure they were grotesque. There were much glare
      and glitter and piquancy and phantasm—much of what has been since
      seen in “Hernani.” There were arabesque figures with unsuited
      limbs and appointments. There were delirious fancies such as the
      madman fashions. There was much of the beautiful, much of the
      wanton, much of the bizarre, something of the terrible, and not a
      little of that which might have excited disgust. To and fro in
      the seven chambers there stalked, in fact, a multitude of dreams. And these—the dreams—writhed in and about, taking hue from the
      rooms, and causing the wild music of the orchestra to seem as the
      echo of their steps. And, anon, there strikes the ebony clock
      which stands in the hall of the velvet. And then, for a moment,
      all is still, and all is silent save the voice of the clock. The
      dreams are stiff-frozen as they stand. But the echoes of the
      chime die away—they have endured but an instant—and a light,
      half-subdued laughter floats after them as they depart. And now
      again the music swells, and the dreams live, and writhe to and
      fro more merrily than ever, taking hue from the many-tinted
      windows through which stream the rays from the tripods. But to
      the chamber which lies most westwardly of the seven, there are
      now none of the maskers who venture; for the night is waning
      away; and there flows a ruddier light through the blood-colored
      panes; and the blackness of the sable drapery appals; and to him
      whose foot falls upon the sable carpet, there comes from the near
      clock of ebony a muffled peal more solemnly emphatic than any
      which reaches their ears who indulge in the more remote gaieties
      of the other apartments. But these other apartments were densely crowded, and in them beat
      feverishly the heart of life. And the revel went whirlingly on,
      until at length there commenced the sounding of midnight upon the
      clock. And then the music ceased, as I have told; and the
      evolutions of the waltzers were quieted; and there was an uneasy
      cessation of all things as before. But now there were twelve
      strokes to be sounded by the bell of the clock; and thus it
      happened, perhaps, that more of thought crept, with more of time,
      into the meditations of the thoughtful among those who revelled. And thus, too, it happened, perhaps, that before the last echoes
      of the last chime had utterly sunk into silence, there were many
      individuals in the crowd who had found leisure to become aware of
      the presence of a masked figure which had arrested the attention
      of no single individual before. And the rumor of this new
      presence having spread itself whisperingly around, there arose at
      length from the whole company a buzz, or murmur, expressive of
      disapprobation and surprise—then, finally, of terror, of horror,
      and of disgust. In an assembly of phantasms such as I have painted, it may well
      be supposed that no ordinary appearance could have excited such
      sensation. In truth the masquerade license of the night was
      nearly unlimited; but the figure in question had out-Heroded
      Herod, and gone beyond the bounds of even the prince’s indefinite
      decorum. There are chords in the hearts of the most reckless
      which cannot be touched without emotion. Even with the utterly
      lost, to whom life and death are equally jests, there are matters
      of which no jest can be made. The whole company, indeed, seemed
      now deeply to feel that in the costume and bearing of the
      stranger neither wit nor propriety existed. The figure was tall
      and gaunt, and shrouded from head to foot in the habiliments of
      the grave. The mask which concealed the visage was made so nearly
      to resemble the countenance of a stiffened corpse that the
      closest scrutiny must have had difficulty in detecting the cheat. And yet all this might have been endured, if not approved, by the
      mad revellers around. But the mummer had gone so far as to assume
      the type of the Red Death. His vesture was dabbled in blood—and
      his broad brow, with all the features of the face, was
      besprinkled with the scarlet horror. When the eyes of Prince Prospero fell upon this spectral image
      (which with a slow and solemn movement, as if more fully to
      sustain its role, stalked to and fro among the waltzers) he was
      seen to be convulsed, in the first moment with a strong shudder
      either of terror or distaste; but, in the next, his brow reddened
      with rage. “Who dares?” he demanded hoarsely of the courtiers who stood near
      him—“who dares insult us with this blasphemous mockery?