t of the sand.

Their heads, lying higher than their bodies, were not so deeply buried
under the drift; which, blown lightly over their faces, still permitted
the atmosphere to pass through it. Otherwise their breathing would have
been stopped altogether; and death must have been the necessary
consequence.

Whether it was a genuine nightmare or no, it was accompanied by all the
horrors of this phenomenon. As they afterwards declared, all four felt
its influence, each in his own way dreaming of some fearful fascination
from which he could make no effort to escape. Strange enough, their
dreams were different. Harry Blount thought he was falling over a
precipice; Colin that a gigantic ogre had got hold of and was going to
eat him up; while the young Hibernian fancied himself in the midst of a
conflagration, a dwelling-house on fire, from which he could not get
out!

Old Bill's delusion was more in keeping with their situation, or at
least with that out of which they had lately escaped. He simply
supposed that he was submerged in the sea, and as he knew he could not
swim, it was but natural for him to fancy that he was drowning.

Still, he could make no struggle; and, as he would have done this,
whether able to swim or not, his dream did not exactly resemble the real
thing.

The sailor was the first to escape from the uncomfortable incubus;
though there was but an instant between the awakening of all. They were
startled out of their sleep, one after another, in the order in which
they lay, and inversely to that in which they had lain down.

Their awakening was as mysterious as the nightmare itself, and scarce
relieved them from the horror which the latter had been occasioning.

All felt in turn, and in quick succession, a heavy crushing pressure,
either on the limbs or body; which had the effect, not only to startle
them from their sleep, but caused them considerable pain.

Twice was this pressure applied, almost exactly on the same spot; and
with scarce a second's interval between the applications. It could not
well have been repeated a third time with like exactness, even had such
been the design of whatever creature was causing it, for, after a second
squeeze, each had recovered sufficient consciousness to know he was in
danger of being crushed, and make a desperate effort to withdraw
himself.

The exclamations, proceeding from four sets of lips, told that all were
still in the land of the living; but t