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I stood a moment or two at the door watching the clock whilst it struck, and greatly admiring the workmanship of the skeleton that rose and speared with his lance, keeping time to the sonorous chiming, which sang with a solemn interval between each beat. The great age of this time-keeper was beyond question, but the horn that protected the face of it prevented me from perceiving if there was any maker's name or date there.
As the skeleton sank, I could not but admire the aptness of the mechanism to the condition of the ship and her crew, for what could surpass the irony of this representation of Death perpetually foiled in his efforts to slay Time, which was yet the case of Vanderdecken and his men, whose mortality was constrained to an endless triumph over that force which drives all men born of woman through Nature into Eternity.