extinguished, but again that horrible bark! bark! broke the hush of
midnight, and worse than all, the quickened senses of fever heard it
answered from away over on Arbor Hill; and again away up in State
street; and yet again over in Lydius, and still again away down by the
river. The East, the North, the West and the South had a voice, and it
was all concentrated in a ceaseless, senseless, idiotic bark. I
counted again the tickings of the clock, and each swing of the
pendulum ended in a bark! As I lay there in the silence and
desolation, the restless, tossing anguish of fever, those dogs
gathered together in State at the crossing of Eagle, just above my
boarding-house, and barked! They came under my windows, and barked!
They looked in between the curtains, and barked! They came into my
room, and there on the sofa, on the rocking-chair, on the table, on
the mantelpiece, on the ottoman, on the stove, and on the top of the
old clock, was a dog; and each barked! and barked! I saw them all
through the darkness, plain as if it were noonday. They were
'dirty dogs,' filthy brutes, ill-favored mangy curs all, and there
they sat and barked at the clock, barked at the mirror, at the stove,
barked at one another and at me, with the same monotonous,
meaningless, idiotic bow, wow! as of old.

"I had two rifles and a double-barrelled fowling-piece, sitting in the
corner of the parlor adjoining our sleeping-room, the gifts of valued
friends. My wife, wearied with the day's watching, had sunk into
slumber on the bed beside me. I woke her gently.

"'Make no noise,' I said, 'but bring me the guns; do it carefully.'

"'What on earth do you want of the guns?' she inquired in alarm.