He replied with a groan!
I was awakened from wild slumbers of my own, and strongly partook of his sensations; but endeavoured however to rouze him to speech, and recollection. Again and again I asked 'What have you heard? What ails you?'
It was long before he could utter an articulate sound. At last, shaking more violently as he spoke, and with inexpressible horror in his voice, he gasping said—'A dead hand!'—
'Where?'—
'I felt it!—I had hold of it!—It is now at my neck.'
For a moment I paused: not daring to stretch out my arm, and examine.
I trembled in sympathy with him. At length I ventured.
Never shall I forget the sensation I experienced, when, to my full conviction, I actually felt a cold, dead, hand, between my fingers!
I was suffocated with horror! I struggled to overcome it: again it seized me; and I sunk half entranced!
At this very instant, the shrill sound of the whistle rung, piercing, through the dismal place in which we were imprisoned. It was answered. The same hoarse voices once more were heard: but in tones fifty fold more dire.
One terror combated the other, and we were recalled to some sense of distinguishing and understanding. We lay silent, not daring to breathe, when we heard the door unlock. Our feelings will not readily be conceived, while the following dialogue passed. 'What a damned while you have kept us waiting, such a night as this!'