CHICHESTER 265 



■will be led into I know not which, of the four ways — 

 North, South, East, or West ; but close by, in one of 

 them, his guide will pause, look back, then lightly run 

 down a flight of narrow crooked stairs leading to a 

 cellar. Following, the stranger will find himself in a 

 dim, silent, crypt-hke place, smelling of ancient damp 

 and mould, dark at first to his unaccustomed eyes. 

 But in a little while he will discern a huge recumbent 

 form, paler in colour than the floor of rotting wood, 

 the dripping stone walls, and vaulted roof — a stupen- 

 dous human-shaped monster, like a Daniel Lambert 

 increased to ten times his great size ; his naked body 

 and limbs extended on the black wet floor, apparently 

 dead and swollen by death, but the head raised, sup- 

 ported by a hand and arm; the face, round as an 

 ancient warrior's shield, but larger, turned to him, 

 froth and yellow slime dropping from the obscene 

 mouth, the wide bloodshot eyes fixed with a chal- 

 lenging gaze on his. Fascinated by that gaze, he, 

 wide-eyed too, will stare back, even as a crystal-gazer 

 looks expectant into a glass globe before him ; and in 

 those pale blue watery orbs he will see visions appear- 

 ing and vanishing like lightning, an inconceivably 

 rapid succession of faces, forms, events — wrecked lives 

 of innumerable men, broken hearts and homes made 

 desolate ; famine and every foul disease ; feverish 

 dreams and appetites, frantic passions, crimes, ravings 

 of delirium, epilepsy, insanity ; and strewn over all, the 

 ashes of death — all seen in one briefest moment of time. 



