On Death's Trail

Excerpt: The solitary ray of light that found its way into the dismal room seemed to shrink from entering. Silence reigned supreme within. Outside, even the stillness of the night was hardly broken. It was a ray of moonlight, as feeble through the misty air as ?the glowworm?s ineffectual fire.? It found its way in, nevertheless, under one broken slat of a closed blind, and then it seemed to hesitate, losing life and shrinking from going farther. Was there a lost life within? The ray of light came farther and fell upon only one object in the room. All else was gloom and silence. It stood near the partly open window and the closed blinds. It was as motionless as a block of stone, as white as a figure of marble, as cold as a form of clay. Its covering of white hid it entirely from view, had there been eyes to see. It hung in flimsy folds on either side of the narrow, unpillowed bed. Now and then a breath of the night air stirred it, but only as if in mockery, and an observer would have shrunk and shuddered?lest its motion had been imparted by what it covered. It was the only sign of life amid the gloom and silence. Suddenly the stillness was broken, but only faintly. It was as if a bell tolled too soon the funeral knell. In some quarter remote from the dismal room, a clock struck the hour?three slow, mellow strokes of the bell.