He
had involuntarily closed his eyes during the operation, and when he
unclosed them again, as soon as the finger was withdrawn, he found that
they were opened in more senses than one. The room appeared to have
extended itself on all sides, till he could not exactly see where the
walls were; and all about it stood the Shadows motionless. They were
tall and solemn; rather awful, indeed, in their appearance,
notwithstanding many remarkable traits of grotesqueness, for they
looked just like the pictures of Puritans drawn by Cavaliers, with long
arms, and very long, thin legs, from which hung large loose feet, while
in their countenances length of chin and nose predominated. The
solemnity of their mien, however, overcame all the oddity of their
form, so that they were very _eerie_ indeed to look at, dressed as they
all were in funereal black. But a single glance was all that the king
was allowed to have; for the former operator waved his dusky palm
across his vision, and once more the king saw only the fire-lighted
walls, and dark shapes flickering about upon them. The two who had
spoken for the rest seemed likewise to have vanished. But at last the
king discovered them, standing one on each side of the fireplace. They
kept close to the chimney-wall, and talked to each other across the
length of the chimney-piece; thus avoiding the direct rays of the fire,
which, though light is necessary to their appearing to human eyes, do
not agree with them at all--much less give birth to them, as the king
was soon to learn.
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