THE GATE OF DARKNESS Taking the phial from the chest I poured an ample but not an over dose of the poison into a medicine glass, mixing it with a little water, so that it might be easier to swallow.

I lingered as long as I could over these preparations, but they came to an end too soon.
Now there seemed to be nothing more to do except to transfer that little measure of white fluid from the glass to my mouth, and thus to open the great door at whose bolts and bars we stare blankly from the day of birth to the day of death.

Every panel of that door is painted with a different picture touched to individual taste.

Some are beautiful, and some are grim, and some are neutral-tinted and indefinite.

My favourite picture used to be one of a boat floating on a misty ocean, and in the boat a man sleeping--myself, dreaming happily, dreaming always.
But that picture had gone now, and in place of it was one of blackness, not the tumultuous gloom of a stormy night, but dead, cold, unfathomable blackness.