Roanoke of Roanoke Hall: A Romance — page 94: what you’re looking at

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

88 Roanoke of Roanoke Hall, I should die of snffocation, for I dared not breathe while he was so close to me that each respiration of his stirred my bristling hair. One touch of his hand on my head, one step of his foot on my legs, and I was irretrieva- bly lost. How long this lasted I shall never know: one does not measure such passages of life by clock-ticks. It cannot of a surety have been long before he raised himself, and, withdraw- ing his hand, muttered a curse upon some- thing that he could not find, and went out. I could have sobbed a prayer of thankfulness, but he mig’ return at any moment, and there was no time to lose. I rose faintly to my feet, every muscle quivering till I scarce could stand, and looked forth. He was pro- ceeding in the same direction as he had taken at first. I had no longer any desire to follow him ; my curiosity had been trampled down by my fears in the ordeal I had passed through, and my only thought was to reach the postern, and find shelter in my own room. Had a cloud of ghastly fiends been chasing me, and. the pavement thin lava above a comicbooks.com