I was sick and shivering with cold. Solitude had unmanned me already,
and I was utterly unfit to have come upon such an assembly of fiends in
such a dreadful wilderness and without preparation. I would have given
everything I had in the world to have been back at my master's station;
but that was not to be thought of: my head was failing, and I felt sure
that I could never get back alive.
Then came a gust of howling wind, accompanied with a moan from one of the
statues above me. I clasped my hands in fear. I felt like a rat caught
in a trap, as though I would have turned and bitten at whatever thing was
nearest me. The wildness of the wind increased, the moans grew shriller,
coming from several statues, and swelling into a chorus. I almost
immediately knew what it was, but the sound was so unearthly that this
was but little consolation. The inhuman beings into whose hearts the
Evil One had put it to conceive these statues, had made their heads into
a sort of organ-pipe, so that their mouths should catch the wind and
sound with its blowing. It was horrible. However brave a man might be,
he could never stand such a concert, from such lips, and in such a place.
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