AN INHABITANT OF CARCOSA

For there be divers sorts of death—­some wherein the body remaineth; and in some it vanisheth quite away with the spirit.  This commonly occurreth only in solitude (such is God’s will) and, none seeing the end, we say the man is lost, or gone on a long journey—­which indeed he hath; but sometimes it hath happened in sight of many, as abundant testimony showeth.  In one kind of death the spirit also dieth, and this it hath been known to do while yet the body was in vigor for many years.  Sometimes, as is veritably attested, it dieth with the body, but after a season is raised up again in that place where the body did decay.

Pondering these words of Hali (whom God rest) and questioning their full meaning, as one who, having an intimation, yet doubts if there be not something behind, other than that which he has discerned, I noted not whither I had strayed until a sudden chill wind striking my face revived in me a sense of my surroundings.  I observed with astonishment that everything seemed unfamiliar.  On every side of me stretched a bleak and desolate expanse of plain, covered with a tall overgrowth of sere grass, which rustled and whistled in the autumn wind with heaven knows what mysterious and disquieting suggestion.  Protruded at long intervals above it, stood strangely shaped and somber-colored rocks, which seemed to have an understanding with one another and to exchange looks of uncomfortable significance, as if they had reared their heads to watch the issue of some foreseen event.  A few blasted trees here and there appeared as leaders in this malevolent conspiracy of silent expectation.

The day, I thought, must be far advanced, though the sun was invisible; and although sensible that the air was raw and chill my consciousness of that fact was rather mental than physical—­I had no feeling of discomfort.  Over all the dismal landscape a canopy of low, lead-colored clouds hung like a visible curse.  In all this there were a menace and a portent—­a hint of evil, an intimation of doom.  Bird, beast, or insect there was none.  The wind sighed in the bare branches of the dead trees and the gray grass bent to whisper its dread secret to the earth; but no other sound nor motion broke the awful repose of that dismal place.

I observed in the herbage a number of weather-worn stones, evidently shaped with tools.  They were broken, covered with moss and half sunken in the earth.  Some lay prostrate, some leaned at various angles, none was vertical.  They were obviously headstones of graves, though the graves themselves no longer existed as either mounds or depressions; the years had leveled all.  Scattered here and there, more massive blocks showed where some pompous tomb or ambitious monument had once flung its feeble defiance at oblivion.  So old seemed these relics, these vestiges of vanity and memorials of affection and piety, so battered and worn and stained—­so neglected, deserted, forgotten the place, that I could not help thinking myself the discoverer of the burial-ground of a prehistoric race of men whose very name was long extinct.