Both were too well acquainted with the way to need any light.  Ascending the broad stone steps, they presently emerged into the cathedral, which they found illumined by the same glimmering light as the lower church, and they perceived the ghostly assemblage gathered into an immense ring, and dancing round the tall skeleton, who continued beating his drum, and uttering a strange gibbering sound, which was echoed by the others.  Each moment the dancers increased the swiftness of their pace, until at last it grew to a giddy whirl, and then, all at once, with a shriek of laughter, the whole company fell to the ground.

Chowles and Judith, then, for the first time, understood, from the confusion that ensued, and the exclamations uttered, that they were no spirits they had to deal with, but beings of the same mould as themselves.  Accordingly, they approached the party of masquers, for such they proved, and found on inquiry that they were a party of young gallants, who, headed by the Earl of Rochester—­the representative of the tall skeleton—­had determined to realize the Dance of Death, as once depicted on the walls of an ancient cloister at the north of the cathedral, called Pardon-churchyard, on the walls of which, says Stowe, were “artificially and richly painted the Dance of Macabre, or Dance of Death, commonly called the Dance of Paul’s, the like whereof was painted about Saint Innocent’s, at Paris.  The metres, or poesy of this dance,” proceeds the same authority, “were translated out of Trench into English by John Lydgate, monk of Bury, and, with the picture of Death leading all estates, painted about the cloister, at the special request and expense of Jenkin Carpenter, in the reign of Henry the Sixth.”  Pardon-churchyard was pulled down by the Protector Somerset, in the reign of Edward the Sixth, and the materials employed in the erection of his own palace in the Strand.  It was the discussion of these singular paintings, and of the designs on the same subject ascribed to Holbein, that led the Earl of Rochester and his companions to propose the fantastic spectacle above described.  With the disposition which this reckless nobleman possessed to turn the most solemn and appalling subjects to jest, he thought no season so fitting for such an entertainment as the present—­just as in our own time the lively Parisians made the cholera, while raging in their city, the subject of a carnival pastime.  The exhibition witnessed by Chowles and Judith was a rehearsal of the masque intended to be represented in the cathedral on the following night.

Again marshalling his band, the Earl of Rochester beat his drum, and skipping before them, led the way towards the south door of the cathedral, which was thrown open by an unseen hand, and the procession glided through it like a troop of spectres.  Chowles, whose appearance was not unlike that of an animated skeleton, was seized with a strange desire to join in what was going forward, and taking off his doublet, and baring his bony arms and legs, he followed the others, dancing round Judith in the same manner that the other skeletons danced round their partners.