Waterbury evening Democrat., 1888-03-07

wake upI' she called out. How dare you come here9 How did you get ina Leave the room or will call for help!"
 She raised her voice at the last words It produced no effect. Leaning further over the bed she boldly took tine countess by the shoulder and shook her. Not even this effort succeeded ill rousing tue sleeping woman. She still lay back in the chair, possessed by torpor like the torpor of deaih-insensible to sound, insensihle to touch. Was she really sleeping2 Or had she fainteda
 Agnes looked closer at her. She had not tainted. Her breathing was audible, rising and falling, in deep, heavy gasps. At inter- vas sue ground her teeth savagely. Beads of precipitation stood thckly O.. her forehead. Her clinched hand rose and fell slowly from time to time on ner lap. Was she in the agony of dreams or was she spiritually con scious of something hidden in the rooms
 The doubt involved in that last question was uncomfortable Agnes determined to rouse the servants who kept watch ill the hotel at night.
 The bell handle was fixed to the wall on the side of tine bed by which the table stood.
 She raised herself from the crouchipg posi- tion she had assumed in looking close at the countess, and, turning toward the other side of the bed, stretched out her hand to the bell. At the same instant she stopped and looked upward. Her hand fell helplessly at her side. She shuddered, and sunk back on the pillow.
 What bad she seen3
 She had seen another intruder in her room.
 Midway between her and the ceiling there lowered a human head-severed at the neck like head struck from the body by the guillo- tine.
 Nothing visible, nothing audible, had given her warning of its appearance. Silently and suddenly, the bead had taken its place above her. No supernatural change had passed over the room, or was perceptible in it now. The dumbly tortured figure in the chair; tho broad window opposite the foot of the bed with the black night beyond it; the candle burning on the table--these, and ail other ob- jects In the room, remained unaltered. One object more, unutterably horrid. had been added to the rest. That was the only change no more, no less.
 By the yellow candle light she saw the head distinctly lowering in mid air above her. She looked at it steadfastly, spellbound by the terror that held her.
 The flesh of the face was gone. The shriv- eled skin was darkened ill hue, liko the skin of on Egyptian mummy-except at tue neck. There it was of Q lighter color; there 1t showed spots and splashes of the hue of that brown spot on the ceiling. which the childs lduClIE4 VoTIOr uuu A.1tO LuO uk0H ness of spot of blood. Ihin rerl ii,s of a discolored nustache and whiskers, hanging over the upper lip, and over the hollows where the cheeks had once been, made tho head just recognizable as the head of man, Over all the features death and time had done their obliterating work. The eyelids wers closed. The hair on the skull, discoored like the hair on the face, had been burned away in places. The bluish lips, parted in fixed grin, showed the double row of teeth. By slow degrees the lowering head perfectly still when she first saw it) began to descend toward Agnes as she lay beneath By slow degrees that strange, doubly blended oGor which the commissioners had discovered ia the vaults of the old palace-which had sick enet Francis Westwick ill the bed chamber of the new hotel-spread it's fetid exhalations over the room Downward and downward the hideous apparition made its slow prog ress. until ib stopped close over Agnes stopped and turned slowly so that the face of it confronted the upturned face of tue woman in the chair.
 After that there came pause. Then a moneutary animation disturbed the rigid re- pose of the dead face: Tha closed eyeli,ls opened slowly The eyes revealed them selves, bright with the gla~sy film of death, and fixed their dreadful look on the woman iu tic chair.
 a,gses saw uaas iQOk: saw tass stEainins.