A throng of Genii and other
fantastic spirits of each sex danced in troops, at the sound of music
which issued from beneath.
In the midst of this immense hall a vast multitude was incessantly
passing, who severally kept their right hands on their hearts, without
once regarding anything around them; they had all the livid paleness of
death; their eyes, deep sunk in their sockets, resembled those phosphoric
meteors that glimmer by night in places of interment. Some stalked
slowly on, absorbed in profound reverie; some, shrieking with agony, ran
furiously about, like tigers wounded with poisoned arrows; whilst others,
grinding their teeth in rage, foamed along, more frantic than the wildest
maniac. They all avoided each other, and, though surrounded by a
multitude that no one could number, each wandered at random, unheedful of
the rest, as if alone on a desert which no foot had trodden.
Vathek and Nouronihar, frozen with terror at a sight so baleful, demanded
of the Giaour what these appearances might mean, and why these ambulating
spectres never withdrew their hands from their hearts.
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