When everything was still once more,I crept out of bed, sick and feeble,and lit the gas with a hand that trembled as if it were aged with a hundred years. The light brought some little cheer to my spirits.I sat down and fell into a dreamy contemplation of that great footprint in the ashes.By and by its outlines began to waver and grow dim.I glanced up and the broad gas-flame was slowly wilting away .In the same moment I heard that elephantine tread again.I noted its approach,nearer and nearer,along the musty halls,and dimmerand dimmer the light had dwindled to a sickly blue,and all things about me lay in a spectral twilight.The door did not open,and yet I felt a faint gust of air fan my cheek,and presently was conscious of a huge,cloudy presence before me.Iwatched it with fascinated eyes.A pale glow stole over the Thing;gradually its cloudy folds took shape-an arm appeared,then a body,and last a great sad face looked out ot the vapor.Stripped of its filmy housings,naked,muscular and comely,the majestic Cardiff Giant loomed aboved me
