Roanoke of Roanoke Hall: A Romance — page 58: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

52. Roanoke of ‘Roanoke Hall. ize, until on dismounting I felt this beneath my feet, the full accumulated horror of that wilderness of shifting sand-drift. ' The place on which we stood seemed to be a platform surrounding a house, one side of which frowned down dark and gloomy upon me. Leading my horse by the bridle, keep- ing close to the wall, and feeling the ground carefully before I ventured to put any weight ‘upon my feet, I advanced until I came toa corner and turned it. Still darkness encir- cled me, but slightly relieved by the watery moonbeams. Forwards once more. No cheering rays shone from any window in the blank dead wall, and the beacon that had guided me hither had either been suffered to burn out, or was so placed as to be invisible save from a distance. I turned yet another corner in the same voiceless darkness, and was begin- ning in despairing horror to think that the place was deserted and without entrance, when my guiding wall failed me, and I per- ceived in the blackness a still greater depth of gloom. It was the yawning arch of a door- way. comichooks.com |