His only hope, therefore, lay in daring the unknown in
preference to the known.
He moved forward. A few steps took him to the doorway. The
chamber before him was darker than the corridor, so that he could
just indistinctly make out the objects in the room. He saw a
sleeping dais near the center, with a darker blotch of something
lying on the marble floor beside it. He moved a step farther into
the doorway and the scabbard of his sword scraped against the
stone frame. To his horror he saw the sleeping silks and furs
upon the central dais move. He saw a figure slowly arising to a
sitting posture from the death bed of O-Mai the Cruel. His knees
shook, but he gathered all his moral forces, and gripping his
sword more tightly in his trembling fingers prepared to leap
across the chamber upon the horrid apparition. He hesitated just
a moment. He felt eyes upon him--ghoulish eyes that bored through
the darkness into his withering heart--eyes that he could not
see. He gathered himself for the rush--and then there broke from
the thing upon the couch an awful shriek, and O-Tar sank
senseless to the floor.
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