[Sketches New and Old by Mark Twain]@TWC D-Link bookSketches New and Old CHAPTER V 37/94
There was no human sound in the air, not even a footstep. There was no sound of any kind to emphasize the dead stillness, except the occasional hollow barking of a dog in the distance and the fainter answer of a further dog.
Presently up the street I heard a bony clack-clacking, and guessed it was the castanets of a serenading party. In a minute more a tall skeleton, hooded, and half clad in a tattered and moldy shroud, whose shreds were flapping about the ribby latticework of its person, swung by me with a stately stride and disappeared in the gray gloom of the starlight.
It had a broken and worm-eaten coffin on its shoulder and a bundle of something in its hand.
I knew what the clack-clacking was then; it was this party's joints working together, and his elbows knocking against his sides as he walked.
I may say I was surprised.
<<Back Index Next>> D-Link book Top TWC mobile books
|