him dead."

I am dreamily astonished at this. Dead--so soon! I cannot understand
it; and I drift off again into a state of confused imaginings. As I
look back now to that time, I find I have no specially distinct
recollection of what afterward happened to me. I know I suffered
intense, intolerable pain--that I was literally tortured on a rack of
excruciating anguish--and that through all the delirium of my senses I
heard a muffled, melancholy sound like a chant or prayer. I have an
idea that I also heard the tinkle of the bell that accompanies the
Host, but my brain reeled more wildly with each moment, and I cannot be
certain of this. I remember shrieking out after what seemed an eternity
of pain, "Not to the villa! no, no, not there! You shall not take
me--my curse on him who disobeys me!"

I remember then a fearful sensation, as of being dragged into a deep
whirlpool, from whence I stretched up appealing hands and eyes to the
monk who stood above me--I caught a drowning glimpse of a silver
crucifix glittering before my gaze, and at last, with one loud cry for
help, I sunk--down--down! into an abyss of black night and nothingness!

CHAPTER III.

There followed a long drowsy time of stillness and shadow. I seemed to
have fallen in some deep well of delicious oblivion and obscurity.
Dream-like images still flitted before my fancy--these were at first
undefinable, but after awhile they took more certain shapes. Strange
fluttering creatures hovered about me--lonely eyes stared at me from a
visible deep gloom; long white bony fingers grasping at nothing made
signs to me of warning or menace. Then--very gradually, there dawned
upon my sense of vision a cloudy red mist like a stormy sunset, and
from the middle of the blood-like haze a huge black hand descended
toward me. It pounced upon my chest--it grasped my throat in its
monstrous clutch, and held me down with a weight of iron. I struggled
violently--I strove to cry out, but that terrific pressure took from me
all power of utterance. I twisted myself to right and left in an
endeavor to escape--but my tyrant of the sable hand had bound me in on
all sides. Yet I continued to wrestle with the cruel opposing force
that strove to overwhelm me--little by little--inch by inch--so! At
last! One more struggle--victory! I woke! Merciful God! Where was I? In
what horrible atmosphere--in what dense darkness? Slowly, as my senses
returned to me, I remembered my recent illne