From the pain experienced in moving, I only turned half-round, and therefore lay in a position that prevented my seeing more than the upper part of the large window; but I gradually slewed myself, so as to lie more on my side. "Heaven and earth, there he is again!" My heart fluttered and beat audibly. My breathing became impeded and irregular, and large drops of ice-cold perspiration burst from my forehead and face; for _there_, with his head leaning on his hand, his arm resting on the window sill, and motionless as the timber on which he reclined, his beautiful features upturned towards the pale cold moon, and full in the stream of her mild effulgence, sat the apparition of young Henry De Walden! I tried to speak, but my breath failed, and a sudden giddiness came over me. "I am gone at last," thought I. "I know what his coming twice betokens--Henry, I will soon be with you!" * * * * * I had fainted away. When I again opened my eyes, I was so dizzy and confused, that I did not know where I was. My wound was giving me great pain, and I turned with difficulty on my other side, towards where the table stood. Believing that I was fast dying, and that I should soon be "a thing immortal as itself," I did not even start when I saw the same figure, whose appearance had so agitated me before, now seated at the table, apparently reading. "The third time," thought I--"it should be so--it should be so--Heaven receive my repentant soul!" At this moment the door opened, and some one, dressed like a seaman, slid into the room. As he approached the table, the apparition of the young midshipman slowly lifted its head, and peered into the darkness. From the dimness of the taper it appeared unable to make out what approached, for the ghost now took up the snuffers, and snuffed the candle as scientifically as if it had once inhabited the tallow-tainted carcass of a scene-shifter. "Confound these old-fashioned snuffers, the spring is broken!" My eyes opened at this, wider, I believe, than they had ever done before, and my ears tingled. "What a speech from an inhabitant of the other world!" thought I. "Oh! is it you, Joe Peak?" quoth the handsome spectre; "why do you steal in and startle one so, you little villain? Hush--off with these heavy shoes of yours, and come and sit down, will ye?" Master Joey, who, I knew, was in the body as yet at any rate, now came forward into the light, and drawing a chair, sat down fronting the apparition. "Well, Henry, my lad, how is master Benjamin--better?" "A good deal--if that old French medico has not poisoned him outright with laudanum. He has slept since twelve at noon--and what's the hour now, Joey?" "Gone eight bells--so go and turn in, De Walden, and I will take my spell here."