mouldy linens long embalmed in cedars.

Well, away with stealthy trot I ran from the abysmal silence of that
place, and in Palace Street near made one of those sudden immoderate
rackets that seemed to outrage the universe, and left me so woefully
faint, decrepit, and gasping for life (the noise of the train was
different, for there I was flying, but here a captive, and which way I
ran was capture). Passing in Palace Street, I saw a little lampshop, and
wanting a lantern, tried to get in, but the door was locked; so, after
going a few steps, and kicking against a policeman's truncheon, I
returned to break the window-glass. I knew that it would make a fearful
noise, and for some fifteen or twenty minutes stood hesitating: but
never could I have dreamed, my good God, of _such_ a noise, so
passionate, so dominant, so divulgent, and, O Heaven, so long-lasting:
for I seemed to have struck upon the weak spot of some planet, which
came suddenly tumbling, with protracted bellowing and _débâcle_, about
my ears. It was a good hour before I would climb in; but then quickly
found what I wanted, and some big oil-cans; and till one or two in the
morning, the innovating flicker of my lantern went peering at random
into the gloomy nooks of the town.

Under a deep old Gothic arch that spanned a pavered alley, I saw the
little window of a little house of rubble, and between the two
diamond-paned sashes rags tightly beaten in, the idea evidently being to
make the place air-tight against the poison. When I went in I found the
door of that room open, though it, too, apparently, had been stuffed at
the edges; and on the threshold an old man and woman lay low. I
conjectured that, thus protected, they had remained shut in, till either
hunger, or the lack of oxygen in the used-up air, drove them forth,
whereupon the poison, still active, must have instantly ended them. I