The end always impending, no transition between to be and not to be, the
return into the crucible, the slip possible every minute--such is the
precipice which is Creation.

Another instant, the child and the dead, life in sketch and life in
ruin, would be confounded in the same obliteration.

The spectre appeared to understand, and not to wish it. Of a sudden it
stirred. One would have said it was warning the child. It was the wind
beginning to blow again. Nothing stranger than this dead man in
movement.

The corpse at the end of the chain, pushed by the invisible gust, took
an oblique attitude; rose to the left, then fell back, reascended to the
right, and fell and rose with slow and mournful precision. A weird game
of see-saw. It seemed as though one saw in the darkness the pendulum of
the clock of Eternity.

This continued for some time. The child felt himself waking up at the
sight of the dead; through his increasing numbness he experienced a
distinct sense of fear.

The chain at every oscillation made a grinding sound, with hideous
regularity. It appeared to take breath, and then to resume. This
grinding was like the cry of a grasshopper.

An approaching squall is heralded by sudden gusts of wind. All at once
the breeze increased into a gale. The corpse emphasized its dismal
oscillations. It no longer swung, it tossed; the chain, which had been
grinding, now shrieked. It appeared that its shriek was heard. If it was