one after one
As they moved in majestic order , he heard a low sound -- the ghost , as it were , of voice -- which each caught and echoed from the other ; a low sound , but musical , which seemed the chant of some unspeakably tranquil joy . None of these apparitions heeded him . His intense longing to accost them , to be of them , to make one of this movement of aerial happiness , -- for such it seemed to him , -- made him stretch forth his arms and seek to cry aloud , but only an inarticulate whisper passed his lips ; and the movement and the music went on the same as if the mortal were not there . Slowly they glided round and aloft , till , in the same majestic order , one after one , they floated through the casement and were lost in the moonlight ; then , as his eyes followed them , the casement became darkened with some object undistinguishable at the first gaze , but which sufficed mysteriously to change into ineffable horror the delight he had before experienced . By degrees this object shaped itself to his sight . It was as that of a human head covered with a dark veil through which glared , with livid and demoniac fire , eyes that froze the marrow of his bones . Nothing else of the face was distinguishable , -- nothing but those intolerable eyes ; but his terror , that even at the first seemed beyond nature to endure , was increased a thousand-fold , when , after a pause , the phantom glided slowly into the chamber .