creature was caught and consumed and changed to ashes. The tide of war
has rolled on, and left it a blackened waste, a smoking ruin, wherein
not so much as a mouse may creep or a bird may nestle. It is gone, and
its place can know it nevermore.

Nevermore. But who is there to care? It was but as a leaf which the
great storm swept away as it passed.




THE TRAVELLER'S STORY OF A TERRIBLY STRANGE BED, By Wilkie Collins




PROLOGUE TO THE FIRST STORY

Before I begin, by the aid of my wife's patient attention and ready pen,
to relate any of the stories which I have heard at various times from
persons whose likenesses I have been employed to take, it will not be
amiss if I try to secure the reader's interest in the following pages by
briefly explaining how I became possessed of the narrative matter which
they contain.

Of myself I have nothing to say, but that I have followed the profession
of a travelling portrait-painter for the last fifteen years. The pursuit
of my calling has not only led me all through England, but has taken
me twice to Scotland and once to Ireland. In moving from district to
district, I am never guided beforehand by any settled plan. Sometimes