When the narrator accompanies a withered old Yankee back to his house, he is intrigued by the many old curiosities he finds around it – including precolonial furniture. One of these curiosities, an engraving, brings the old man on a terrifying reminisce about eating things that he was not allowed to have, and the narrator realizes that he could next on his plate. As blood drips from the ceiling onto the book, the narrator narrowly escapes when a bolt of lightning strikes the house, finally ending his streak of immortality.