It reminded me of a vast mat of hair sticking directly upward, ever waving back and forth to the breath of the night wind.
Nor did this horrid figure remain one moment still.

There upon the very edge of the precipice, it would leap high into the air, flinging aloft long gaunt arms, even appearing to float bodily forth into the space above us, to disappear instantly, like some phantom of imagination, amid the shrouding gloom of those rock shadows--flitting swiftly, and as upon wings, along the crest; now showing directly in our front, looming like a threatening giant, mocking with wild, furious gestures; then dancing far to right or left, a vague shade in the sheen, a mere nothing in the shadow, yet ever returning, the same weird, unnatural, spectral figure, wildly gyrating upon the air, leering down upon our speechless misery.
My eyes, wide-opened by terror, followed these movements, marking this ghastly shape.

I listened vainly for the slightest sound to connect it with aught human.

The mantle of the night's solemn silence, the dread stillness of wilderness solitudes, rested everywhere.

I heard the mournful sighing of the wind amid jagged rocks and among the swaying branches of the cedars; the dull roar of the little river, even the stentorian breathing of the Puritan lying asleep behind us, but that was all.