To stop would mean--God! what would it mean? These were no
mortal steps that crowded upon his sonorous trail. His fingers flew
over the keys as he finished the scurrying tempests of tone. Again the
first swaying refrain, and Pobloff heard the invisible multitude of feet
pause in the night, as if waiting the moment when the Ballade would
cease. He quivered; the surprises and terrors were telling upon his
well-seasoned nerves.
Still he sped on, fearing the tremendous outburst at the close, where
Chopin throws overboard his soul, and with blood-red sails signals the
hellish _Willis_, the Lamias of the lake, to his side. Ah, if Pobloff
could but thus portion his soul as hostage to the infernal host that now
hemmed him in on all sides! Riding over the black and white rocks of his
keyboard, he felt as if in the clutches of an unknown force. He
discerned death in the distance--death and the unknown horror--and was
powerless to resist. Still the galloping of unseen feet, horrible, naked
flesh, that clattered and scraped the earth; the panting, hoarse and
subdued, of a mighty pack, whose thirst for destruction, for revenge,
was unslaked.
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