He tried to think back, to find what he knew of himself last,
but could for a long time recall only a confused dream of
multitudinous discomfort and painful effort. At last, however, came
the garden, the spade-work, and the old man's talk; and then it
seemed as if the cracked complaining voice had never left his ears.
"I've been ill!" he said to himself. "Perhaps I dropped down. I
hope they haven't buried me!"
With a straining agony of will he got in motion an arm, which was
lying like that of another man outside the coverlid, and felt
feebly about him. His hand struck against something solid, and what
seemed a handful of earth fell with a hollow rumble. Alas, this
seemed ominous! Where could he be but in his coffin? The thought
was not a pleasant one, certainly, but he was too weak, and had
been wandering too long in the miserable limbo of vain fancies, to
be much dismayed. He said to himself he would not have to suffer
long--he must soon go to sleep, and so die.
Fatigued with that one movement, he lay for some time motionless.
His eyes were open, though he did not know it, and by and by he
became aware of light. Thin, dim, darkly gray, a particle at a
time, it grew about him. For some minutes his eyes seemed of
themselves, without any commission from him, to make inquiry of his
surroundings. They discovered that, if he was in a coffin, or even
in a sepulchre without a coffin, it was a large one: there was a
wall--miles away! The light grew, and with it the conviction that
he was in no sepulchre.
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