He lived then before me, he lived as much as he had ever lived---a shadow insatiable of splendid appearances, of frightful realities, a shadow darker than the shadow of the night, and draped nobly in the folds of a gorgeous eloquence. The vision seemed to enter the house with me---the stretcher, the phantom-bearers, the wild crowd of obedient worshipers, the gloom of the forests, the glitter of the reach between the murky bends, the beat of the drum regular and muffled like the beating of a heart, the heart of a conquering darkness.

I could be that tenebrous enigma that floods out your words with sighs and frustration.

...cities are murky places - hatching grounds for monsters...

The night had darkened to the murky sort where the air hung like descending clouds and the overhead branches made the liquid darkness even more impenetrable.