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A Ghost Story - Part 2

The narrator hears strange noises throughout the night in their home including dragging bodies, slamming doors, chains and footsteps. Whispers and screams are slightly muffled and invisible wings and garments rush by. Three balls of light appear on the ceiling and drop onto the narrator, feeling warm then turning to blood. Pale faces and hands float bodiless in the air before disappearing. Later, the narrator's face touches a clammy hand in bed and they fall back weakened. The footprint in the ashes begins to fade as an elephantine tread approaches until a cloudy presence takes the shape of the Cardiff Giant standing before the narrator.

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Agnes Magda Dewi S.Pd. (Guru)
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149 views2 pages

A Ghost Story - Part 2

The narrator hears strange noises throughout the night in their home including dragging bodies, slamming doors, chains and footsteps. Whispers and screams are slightly muffled and invisible wings and garments rush by. Three balls of light appear on the ceiling and drop onto the narrator, feeling warm then turning to blood. Pale faces and hands float bodiless in the air before disappearing. Later, the narrator's face touches a clammy hand in bed and they fall back weakened. The footprint in the ashes begins to fade as an elephantine tread approaches until a cloudy presence takes the shape of the Cardiff Giant standing before the narrator.

Uploaded by

Agnes Magda Dewi S.Pd. (Guru)
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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‘A Ghost Story’ – Part 2

I put out the light and returned to bed, palsied with fear. I lay a long time,
peering into the darkness, und listening.-Then I heard a grating noise overhead,
like the dragging of a heavy body across the floor, then the throwing down of
the body, and the shaking of my windows in response to the concussion. In
distant parts of the building I heard the muffled slamming of doors. I heard, at
intervals, stealthy footsteps creeping in and out among the corridors, and up
and down the stairs. Sometimes these noises approached my door, hesitated,
and went away again. I heard the clanking of chains faintly, in remote
passages, and listened while the clanking grew nearer--while it wearily climbed
the stairways, marking each move by the loose surplus of chain that fell an
accented rattle upon each succeeding step as the goblin that bore it
advanced. I heard muttered sentences: half-uttered screams that seemed
smothered violently, and the swish of invisible garments, the rush of invisible
wings. Then I became conscious that my chamber was invaded--that I was not
alone. I heard sighs and breathings about my bed, and mysterious whisperings.
Three little spheres of soft phosphorescent light appeared on the ceiling directly
over my head, clung and glowed there a moment, and then dropped --two of
them upon my face and one upon the pillow. They, spattered, liquidly, and felt
warm. Intuition told me they had-turned to gouts of blood as they fell-i needed
no light to satisfy myself of that. Then I saw pallid faces, dimly luminous, and
white uplifted hands, floating bodiless in the air-floating a moment and then
disappearing. The whispering ceased, and the voices and the sounds, anal a
solemn stillness followed. I waited and listened. I felt that I must have light or die.
I was weak with fear. I slowly raised myself toward a sitting posture, und my face
came in contact with a clammy hand! All strength went from me apparently,
and I fell back like a stricken invalid. Then I heard the rustle of a garment it
seemed to pass to the door and go out.
When everything was still once more, I crept out of bed, sick and feeble, and lit
the pas with a hand that trembled as if it were aged with a hundred years. The
light brought some little cheer to my spirits. I sat down and fell into a dreamy
contemplation of that great footprint in the ashes. By and by its outlines began
to waver and grow dim. I glanced up and the broad gas-flame was slowly
wilting away. In the same moment I heard that elephantine tread again. I noted
its approach, nearer and nearer, along the musty halls, and dimmer and
dimmer the light waned. The tread reached my very door and paused--the light
had dwindled to a sickly blue, and all things about me lay in a spectral twilight.
The door did not open, and yet I felt a faint gust of air fan my cheek, and
presently was conscious of a huge, cloudy presence before me. I watched it
with fascinated eyes. A pale glow stole over the Thing: gradually its cloudy folds
took shape un arm appeared, then legs, then a body, and last a great sad face
looked out of the vapor. Stripped of its filmy housing, naked, muscular and
comely, the majestic Cardiff Giant loomed above me!

Mark Twain

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