"Coming! coming! coming! and there is no escape! * * Away! ye grinning
devils! out of my sight, ye imps of h--l! Begone! ye ghostly demons,
forever pointing with your long fingers! what would you have me see?"
His eyes were wild with a horrible stare, as if fixed by the magic power of
some ghastly sight, while large drops of perspiration oozed from every
pore, and stood in cold beads upon his brow! In fixed horror he thus
remained for some moments, then fell back and covered his eyes with his
hands, as if to shut out the dreadful scene!
Then rousing again, he exclaimed in another key:
"No! no! no! not that! I'll not come to that! Alive, and food for crawling
worms! No! no! no! Then birds of prey feasting upon my flesh! Oh, God! the
curse! the curse!"
This last vision seemed to overpower him, and he lay moaning most piteously
for a length of time. Then the wilder phases of a distempered mind came on,
and he again resumed his frenzied tone, manner, and language.
"Begone! ye lying fiends, avaunt! I'll not believe your hissing tongues!
'Tis false! all false! Back, or I'll smite you to the earth! Back! back!"
And he fought the air furiously, for a brief period, then sunk back
exhausted on his pallet. A troubled half hour's sleep followed, from which
he awoke much debilitated.
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