It was the fear that he was going to be buried alive—that, in fact, he was already nailed up in his casket and on his way to the silent tomb.
"That fixes it," he heard Mr. Barker say. "Now I'll go to bed."
"Mr. Bar-Barker," Tommy strove to say, but his tongue clove to the roof of his mouth.
The words died on his lips.
A dizziness came over him, his head seemed to swim, and he lost consciousness.
The undertaker had nailed him in the coffin, and he was alone with the dead.
Charley Barker went to sleep, after leaving Tommy, but he woke up with a bad dream, in which he had fancied that his friend had fallen into a furnace and was rapidly being reduced to a cinder.
He had witnessed the horrid scene distinctly in his dream, the boy's arms were outstretched as if begging help and protection, while his plaintive voice rang in his ears.
A cold sweat broke out all over Charley, as he started up in bed, and such was the impression that the dream made on him, that he determined to go to the carpenters' room and satisfy himself with his own eyes that all was right.