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A phantom toe. I am not
a superstitious man, far from it.

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But despite all my efforts to the
contrary, I could not help thinking directly

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I had taken a survey of my
chamber that I should never quit it without

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going through a strange adventure. There
was something in its immense size, heaviness

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and gloom that seemed to annihilate,
at one blow all my resolute skepticism as

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regards supernatural visitations. It appeared to
me totally impossible to go into that room

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and disbelieve in ghosts. The fact
is I had incautiously partaken at supper of

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that favorite Dutch dish, sauer Kraut, and I suppose it had disagreed with

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me and put strange fancies into my
head. Be this as it may,

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I only know that after parting with
my friend the night, I gradually worked

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myself up into such a state of
fidgettiness that at last I wasn't sure whether

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I hadn't become a ghost myself.
Supposing ruminated, I supposing the landlord himself

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should be a practical robber and should
have taken the lock and bolt from off

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this door for the purpose of entering
here in the dead of the night,

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abstracting all my property and perhaps murdering
me. I thought the dog had a

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very cut throat air about him.
Now, I had never had any such

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idea until that moment, for my
host was a fat all Dutchmen are fat,

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stupid looking fellow who I don't believe
had sense enough to understand what a

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robbery or murder meant. But somehow
or other, whenever we have anything really

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to annoy us, and it certainly
was not pleasant to go to bed in

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a strange place without being able to
fasten one's door, we are sure to

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aggravate it by myriads of chimeras of
our own brain. So on the present

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occasion, in the midst of a
thousand disagreeable reveries, some of the most

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wild absurdity, it jumped very gloomily
into bed, having first put out my

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candle for total darkness was far preferable
to its flickering ghostly light, which transformed

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rather than revealed objects, and soon
fell asleep, perfectly tired out with my

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day's riding. How long I lay
asleep, I don't know, but I

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suddenly awoke from a disagreeable dream of
cut throats, ghosts and long winding passages

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in a haunted inn. An indescribable
feeling such as I never before experienced,

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hung upon me. It seemed as
if every nerve in my body had a

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hundred spirits tickling it. And this
was accompanied by so great a heat that,

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inwardly cursing mine host's sour kraut and
wondering how the dutch Men could endure

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such poison, I was forced to
sit up in bed to cool myself.

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The whole of the room was profoundly
dark, excepting at one place, where

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the moonlight, falling through a crevice
in the shutters, through a straight line

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of about an inch or so thick
upon the floor, clear, sharp,

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and intensely brilliant against the darkness.
I leave you to conceive my horror when,

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upon looking at this said line of
light, I saw there a naked

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human toe, nothing more. For
the first instant I thought the vision must

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be some effect of moonlight. Then
that I was only half awake and could

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not see distinctly. So I rubbed
my eyes two or three times and looked

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again. Still there was the accursed
thing, plain, distinct, immovable,

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marble like in its fixedness and rigidity, but in everything else horribly human.

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I am not an easily frightened man, no one who has traveled so much

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and seen so much, and been
exposed to so many dangers as I can

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be. But there was something so
mysterious and unusual in the appearance of this

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single toe that for a short time
I could not think what to be at,

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so I did nothing but stare at
it in a state of utter bewilderment.

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At length, however, as the
toe did not vanish under my steady

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gaze, I thought I might as
well change my tactics, and, remembering

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that all midnight invaders, be they
thieves, ghosts, or devils, dislike

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nothing so much as a good noise, I shouted out in a loud voice,

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Who's there? The toe immediately disappeared
in the darkness. Almost simultaneously with

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my words, I leaped out of
bed and rushed toward the place where I

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had beheld the strange appearance. The
next instant, I ran against something and

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felt an iron grip round my body. After this, I have no distinct

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recollection of what occurred, excepting that
a fearful struggle ensued between me and my

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unseen opponent. That every now and
then we were violently hurled to the floor,

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from which we always rose again in
an instant, locked in a deadly

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embrace, that we tugged and strained
and pulled and pushed I in the convulsive

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and frantic energy of a fight for
life. He For by this time I

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had discovered that the intruder was a
human being, actuated by some passion of

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which I was ignorant. That we
whirled round and round, cheek to cheek,

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and arm to arm in fierce contest, until the room appeared to whiz

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round with us, and that at
least a dozen people, my fellow traveler

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among them, roused, I suppose
by our repeated falls, came pouring into

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the room with lights and showed me
struggling with a man having nothing on but

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a shirt, whose long tangled hair
and wild, unsettled eyes told me he

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was insane. And then, for
the first time I became aware that I

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had received in the conflict several gashes
from a knife, which my opponent still

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held in his hand. To conclude
my story in a few words, for

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I dare say, all of you, by this time are getting very tired.

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It turned out that my midnight visitor
was a madman who was being conveyed

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to a lunatic asylum at the Hague, and that he and his caper had

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been obliged to stop at Delphi on
their way. The poor fellow had contrived

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during the night to escape from his
keeper, who had carelessly forgotten to lock

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the door of his chamber, and
with that irresistible desire to shed blood peculiar

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to many insane people, had possessed
himself of a pocket knife belonging to the

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man who had charge of him.
Entered my room, which was most likely

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the only one in the house unfastened, and was probably meditating the fatal stroke

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when I saw his toe in the
moonlight, the rest of his body being

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hidden in the shade. After this
terrible freak of his he was watched with

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much greater strictness, But I ought
to observe as some excuse for the keeper's

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negligence, that this was the first
act of violence he had ever attempted,

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and of a phantom toe