It ended in the bars being lowered.

The door swung partly open, and a light shone out, dazzling me.

I tried to shade my eyes with my fingers, and, as did so, fancied I heard a murmur of pity.
But when I looked in under screen of my hand, I saw only one person--the man who held the light, and his aspect was so strange, so terrifying, that, shaken as I was by fatigue, I recoiled a step.
He was a tall and very thin man, meanly dressed in a short, scanty jacket and well-darned hose.

Unable, for some reason, to bend his neck, he carried his head with a strange stiffness.
And that head--never did living man show a face so like death.

His forehead was bald and yellow, his cheek-bones stood out under the strained skin, all the lower part of his face fell in, his jaws receded, his cheeks were hollow, his lips and chin were thin and fleshless.