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[Editorial] Modernize spelling
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acabal committed Jun 26, 2022
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<p>Darting, swooping in the mild blaze of the moonlight, with gaping beaks and whirring wings, they swept, wavered, tumbled above their motionless pastures; ghostly-fluttering, feathery-plumed moths their prey. At last, a continuous churring, like the noise of a rattle, near at hand, betrayed them. I lay in my solitude in the midst of a whirling flock of nightjars, few in number, but beside themselves with joy, on the eve of their autumnal flight.</p>
<p>I can only grope my way now through vague and baffling memories. Maybe it was the frenzied excitement of these madly happy birds that shed itself into my defenceless mind, after rousing me into the night I knew too well. With full, vigilant eyes I am standing again a few paces from the brink of the pool, looking up into a moonlit bush of deadly nightshade, its noxious flowering over, and hung with its black, gleaming, cherry-like fruit. I cannot recall having ever given a thought to this poisonous plant in Wanderslore during my waking hours, though in my old happy reconnoitrings of the garden I had sometimes chanced on the coral-red clusters of the woody nightshade⁠—the bittersweet, and had afterwards seen it in blossom.</p>
<p>It may be that only a part of my mind was fully awake, while the rest dreamed on. Yet, as I strive to return in imagination to that solitary hour, I am certain that a complete realization was mine of the power distilled into those alluring light-glossed berries; and, slave of my drowsy senses, I fixed gaze and appetite on them as though, from childhood up, they had been my one greed and desire. Even then, as if for proof that they were real, my eyes wandered; recognized, low in the west, glaring Altair amid the faint outspread wings of Aquila; pondered on the spark-like radiance struck out by the moonbeams from the fragments of tile that protruded here and there from the crumbling wall beyond the pool; and softly returned once more to the evil bush.</p>
<p>Then, for an instant, I fancied that out of the nearer shadows a half-seen form had stolen up close behind me, and was watching me. Fancy or not, it caused me no fear. I turned about where I stood, and from this gentle eminence scanned the immense autumnal garden with its coursing night-birds and distant motionless woods. No; I was alone; by my self; conscious only of an unfathomable quiet; and I stooped and took up one of the ripe fruits that had fallen to the ground. “Ah, ah!” called a faraway voice within me. “Ah, ah! What are you at now?”⁠—a voice like none I had ever heard in the world until that moment. Yet I raised the fruit to my lips.</p>
<p>Then, for an instant, I fancied that out of the nearer shadows a half-seen form had stolen up close behind me, and was watching me. Fancy or not, it caused me no fear. I turned about where I stood, and from this gentle eminence scanned the immense autumnal garden with its coursing night-birds and distant motionless woods. No; I was alone; by myself; conscious only of an unfathomable quiet; and I stooped and took up one of the ripe fruits that had fallen to the ground. “Ah, ah!” called a faraway voice within me. “Ah, ah! What are you at now?”⁠—a voice like none I had ever heard in the world until that moment. Yet I raised the fruit to my lips.</p>
<p>Its bitter juices jetted out upon cheek, mouth, and tongue, forever staining me with their dye. Their very rancour shocked my body wide awake. Struck suddenly through with frightful cold and terror, I flung the vile thing down, and scoured my mouth with the draggled hem of my skirt. “Oh God! oh God!” I cried; then turned, ran a few steps, tripped, turned back and cast myself down, crushing my eyes with my hands; and in helpless confusion began to pray.</p>
<p>Minutes, hours, passed⁠—I know not. But at last, with throat parched and swollen, and hands and cheeks and scalp throbbing with an unnatural heat, I raised my eyes. Two moons were in the sky, hideously revolving amid interwoven arcs of coloured light, and running backward and forward. I called out in the silence. A gigantic nightjar swirled on me, plucking at my hair. A maddening vertigo seized me. I went stumbling and staggering down to my stone and drenched head and breast in the flashing black and silver water.</p>
<p>It was a momentary refreshment, and in its influence memory began droning of the past. Confused abhorrent images mocked my helpless dreamings. There was a place⁠—beyond⁠—out of these shadows, unattainable. A piercing, vindictive voice was calling me. No hope now. I was damned. In senseless hallucination I began systematically, laboriously, a frenzied search. Leaf, pebble, crawling night-creature⁠—with slow, animal-like care, I turned them over one by one, seeking and seeking.</p>
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