CHAPTER X.
AN AWFUL AWAKENING.
I have now reached a point in my life over which I would fain pass in silence. It is an experience so strange, so like some horrid vision of sleep, so different from what usually falls to the lot of man, that, at this remote day, I cannot look upon it without a recoiling shudder of horror. I have sometimes persuaded myself that it was unreal; but no, it is true, and time can never clothe the memory of it in a different dress than that of unearthly terror. Bleak and bare it stands alone, in my checkered lot, and the silver that now glistens prematurely in my hair, came upon that night.
I remember falling into a deep sleep, in which the last form that passed before my eyes was that of the dark Medicine Man; there was a confused murmur of voices, and then all became blank and dark. Gradually the darkness was swept by the glittering folds of a dream—a dream which had little form or theme, but the minutest particulars of which I remember to this day. There were airy, waving figures gliding silently about me without voice, but with every variety of motion. They passed and repassed before my face, frequently pausing and extending their arms over my body, and sometimes standing and intently scanning my countenance. This continued a long time, not a word spoken either by myself or the forms, when suddenly the whole changed. The waving figures darted with the rapidity of lightning among each other, and the quiet radiance became instantly as black as night. In this, I could distinguish the rushing forms growing fainter and fainter, until, at last, all was blackness again.
Then came a feeling as though the thick darkness in one volume were gradually crushing me beneath it, and then a strange feeling of being cramped and held forcibly still. Then came a long, deep, indrawn breath, and I awoke.
All was confused and inexplicable. Open my eyes as wide as I might, I could not pierce the Stygian gloom. I tried to move, but could not—could not stir a limb, and only the fingers of my hand. The air was steamy and hot, and I was surrounded by something which chained every part. I strove to collect my thoughts. I remembered the consultation in the hut, the coming unconsciousness, and—my present awakening. My first impression, after this, was that the house had fallen over me. I clenched my hands—they closed upon earth! I reached forward and licked the darkness. I tasted earth!—and then came the sudden, overwhelming knowledge—
I was buried alive!!
No pen can draw the faintest picture, no soul conceive the unutterable horror, unless that soul has gone through the same awful experience that filled my soul at that discovery. Such a whirlwind of fire as seethed through my bursting brain, such a perfect blaze of all the passions that can rack the human mind, I cannot portray with this feeble pen. For a moment I was frantic, and then suddenly a dreadful and frightful calmness soothed my frame.
Ay, I was buried alive! The savages had mistaken my trance-like stupor for death itself, and I had been hurried prematurely into the grave.
Oh, the appalling discovery! To die while in the grave! The thought was too horrible! I was not yet ready to give way to utter despair. I durst not pause a second for thought, for I knew it would surely come. I twisted and struggled with the strength of fury. I could turn my body around, and use my arms. There was an open space before my face, as I had been buried in the sitting position. Had I lain back I could not have survived five minutes; as it was, my limbs were immovably secured, and it was absolutely impossible for me to free myself.
It was a long time, for such an experience, before I admitted this, but I was compelled to at last. Death by suffocation was rapidly approaching, and all that was left for me was to prepare for it. The small breath of air around me had already been breathed over and over again, and was become hot, steamy, and sickening. I was gasping and panting, but strove to collect my thoughts and keep them from wandering. I commenced praying.