There are
chords in the hearts of the most reckless which cannot be touched
without emotion. Even with the utterly lost, to whom life and death
are equally jests, there are matters of which no jest can be made. The
whole company, indeed, seemed now deeply to feel that in the costume
and bearing of the stranger neither wit nor propriety existed. The
figure was tall and gaunt, and shrouded from head to foot in the
habiliments of the grave. The mask which concealed the visage was made
so nearly to resemble the countenance of a stiffened corpse that the
closest scrutiny must have had difficulty in detecting the cheat. And
yet all this might have been endured, if not approved, by the mad
revellers around. But the mummer had gone so far as to assume the type
of the Red Death. His vesture was dabbled in _blood_--and his broad
brow, with all the features of the face, was besprinkled with the
scarlet horror.
When the eyes of Prince Prospero fell upon this spectral image (which
with a slow and solemn movement, as if more fully to sustain its
_role_, stalked to and fro among the waltzers) he was seen to be
convulsed, in the first moment, with a strong shudder either of terror
or distaste; but, in the next, his brow reddened with rage.
"Who dares?" he demanded hoarsely of the courtiers who stood near
him--"who dares insult us with this blasphemous mockery? Seize him and
unmask him--that we may know whom we have to hang at sunrise, from the
battlements!"
It was in the eastern or blue chamber in which stood the Prince
Prospero as he uttered these words.
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