A considerable time had now elapsed;
in the meanwhile his impatience had risen to an alarming height,
insomuch that we would not have answered for the safety of his red cloth
hose and silken doublet, had not noon been happily announced.
Raising the latch of the seer's chamber with considerable eagerness, he
found the room completely dark. An unseen hand led him to a seat. Soon
he heard a low murmuring chant, as though from voices at a remote
distance. By degrees the words grew more articulate, shaping themselves
into the same quaint distich that Kelly had repeated,--
"The stranger that hither comes o'er the broad sea
Shall wed on the night of St Bartlemy."
This was answered in a voice of considerable pathos; a burst of soft
music filling up the interval. Gradually the eye began to feel sensible
of the presence of surrounding objects, though in the ordinary way
nothing could be distinguished; a faculty peculiarly sensitive with the
loss of sight, and not quite dormant in the general mass of mankind. A
faint gleam was soon perceptible, like the first blush of morning,
apparently on the opposite side of the chamber.
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