At length Monçada collected his voice and resolution to proceed, but as he went on, he perceived he could not fix his hearer’s attention, and he paused. “I thought,” said Melmoth, answering his silence, “I thought I heard a noise--as of a person walking in the passage.” “Hush! and listen,” said Monçada, “I would not wish to be overheard.” They paused and held their breath--the sound was renewed--it was evidently that of steps approaching the door, and then retiring from it. “We are watched,” said Melmoth, half-rising from his chair, but at that moment the door opened, and a figure appeared at it, which Monçada recognized for the subject of his narrative, and his mysterious visitor in the prison of the Inquisition, and Melmoth for the original of the picture, and the being whose unaccountable appearance had filled him with consternation, as he sat beside his dying uncle’s bed. The figure stood at the door for some time, and then advancing slowly till it gained the centre of the room, it remained there fixed for some time, but without looking at them. It then approached the table where they sat, in a slow but distinctly heard step, and stood before them as a living being. The profound horror that was equally felt by both, was differently expressed by each. Monçada crossed himself repeatedly, and attempted to utter many prayers. Melmoth, nailed to his chair, fixed his sightless eyes on the form that stood before him--it was indeed Melmoth the Wanderer--the same as he was in the past century--the same as he may be in centuries to come, should the fearful terms of his existence be renewed. His “natural force was not abated,” but “his eye was dim,”--that appalling and supernatural lustre of the visual organ, that beacon lit by an infernal fire, to tempt or to warn the adventurers of despair from that coast on which many struck, and some sunk--that portentous light was no longer visible--the form and figure were those of a living man, of the age indicated in the portrait which the young Melmoth had destroyed, but the eyes were as the eyes of the dead. * * * * * * As the Wanderer advanced still nearer till his figure touched the table, Monçada and Melmoth started up in irrepressible horror, and stood in attitudes of defence, though conscious at the moment that all defence was hopeless against a being that withered and mocked at human power. The Wanderer waved his arm with an action that spoke defiance without hostility--and the strange and solemn accents of the only human voice that had respired mortal air beyond the period of mortal life, and never spoken but to the ear of guilt or suffering, and never uttered to that ear aught but despair, rolled slowly on their hearing like a peal of distant thunder.