“Arise! did I not bid thee arise?”

“And who,” I demanded, “art thou?”

“I have no name in the regions which I inhabit,” replied the voice, mournfully; “I was mortal, but am fiend.  I was merciless, but am pitiful.  Thou dost feel that I shudder. —­ My teeth chatter as I speak, yet it is not with the chilliness of the night —­ of the night without end.  But this hideousness is insufferable.  How canst thou tranquilly sleep?  I cannot rest for the cry of these great agonies.  These sights are more than I can bear.  Get thee up!  Come with me into the outer Night, and let me unfold to thee the graves.  Is not this a spectacle of woe? —­ Behold!”

I looked; and the unseen figure, which still grasped me by the wrist, had caused to be thrown open the graves of all mankind, and from each issued the faint phosphoric radiance of decay, so that I could see into the innermost recesses, and there view the shrouded bodies in their sad and solemn slumbers with the worm.  But alas! the real sleepers were fewer, by many millions, than those who slumbered not at all; and there was a feeble struggling; and there was a general sad unrest; and from out the depths of the countless pits there came a melancholy rustling from the garments of the buried.  And of those who seemed tranquilly to repose, I saw that a vast number had changed, in a greater or less degree, the rigid and uneasy position in which they had originally been entombed.  And the voice again said to me as I gazed: 

“Is it not —­ oh! is it not a pitiful sight?” —­ but, before I could find words to reply, the figure had ceased to grasp my wrist, the phosphoric lights expired, and the graves were closed with a sudden violence, while from out them arose a tumult of despairing cries, saying again:  “Is it not —­ O, God, is it not a very pitiful sight?”

Phantasies such as these, presenting themselves at night, extended their terrific influence far into my waking hours.  My nerves became thoroughly unstrung, and I fell a prey to perpetual horror.  I hesitated to ride, or to walk, or to indulge in any exercise that would carry me from home.  In fact, I no longer dared trust myself out of the immediate presence of those who were aware of my proneness to catalepsy, lest, falling into one of my usual fits, I should be buried before my real condition could be ascertained.  I doubted the care, the fidelity of my dearest friends.  I dreaded that, in some trance of more than customary duration, they might be prevailed upon to regard me as irrecoverable.  I even went so far as to fear that, as I occasioned much trouble, they might be glad to consider any very protracted attack as sufficient excuse for getting rid of me altogether.  It was in vain they endeavored to reassure me by the most solemn promises.  I exacted the most sacred oaths, that under no circumstances they would bury me until decomposition had so materially advanced as to render farther preservation impossible.