The Masque of the Red Death
to seize him; so that, unimpeded, he passed within a yard of the prince’s
person; and, while the vast assembly, as if with one impulse, shrank from the
centres of the rooms to the walls, he made his way uninterruptedly, but with
the same solemn and measured step which had distinguished him from the first,
through the blue chamber to the purple—through the purple to the
green—through the green to the orange—through this again to the
white—and even thence to the violet, ere a decided movement had been made
to arrest him. It was then, however, that the Prince Prospero, maddening with
rage and the shame of his own momentary cowardice, rushed hurriedly through the
six chambers, while none followed him on account of a deadly terror that had
seized upon all. He bore aloft a drawn dagger, and had approached, in rapid
impetuosity, to within three or four feet of the retreating figure, when the
latter, having attained the extremity of the velvet apartment, turned suddenly
and confronted his pursuer. There was a sharp cry—and the dagger dropped
gleaming upon the sable carpet, upon which, instantly afterwards, fell
prostrate in death the Prince Prospero. Then, summoning the wild courage of
despair, a throng of the revellers at once threw themselves into the black
apartment, and, seizing the mummer, whose tall figure stood erect and
motionless within the shadow of the ebony clock, gasped in unutterable horror
at finding the grave cerements and corpse-like mask, which they handled with so
violent a rudeness, untenanted by any tangible form.
And now was acknowledged the presence of the Red Death. He had come like a
thief in the night. And one by one dropped the revellers in the blood-bedewed
halls of their revel, and died each in the despairing posture of his fall. And
the life of the ebony clock went out with that of the last of the gay. And the
flames of the tripods expired. And Darkness and Decay and the Red Death held
illimitable dominion over all.