VOA慢速英语 短篇故事:泄密的心

　　I kept still and said nothing. I did not move a muscle for a whole hour. During that time, I did not hear him lie down. He was still sitting up in the bed listening -- just as I have done, night after night.

　　Then I heard a noise, and I knew it was the sound of human terror. It was the low sound that arises from the bottom of the soul. I knew the sound well. Many a night, late at night, when all the world slept, it has welled up from deep within my own chest. I say I knew it well.

　　I knew what the old man felt, and felt sorry for him, although I laughed to myself. I knew that he had been lying awake ever since the first noise, when he had turned in the bed. His fears had been ever since growing upon him.

　　When I had waited a long time, without hearing him lie down, I decided to open a little -- a very, very little -- crack in the lantern. So I opened it. You cannot imagine how carefully, carefully. Finally, a single ray of light shot from out and fell full upon the vulture eye.

　　It was open -- wide, wide open -- and I grew angry as I looked at it. I saw it clearly -- all a dull blue, with a horrible veil over it that chilled my bones; but I could see nothing else of the old man's face or person. For I had directed the light exactly upon the damned spot.

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