otionless, it
instantly began to swing,--first in a lateral, then in a longitudinal
direction, although it was perfectly evident that no human hand was
nearer it than my own. At length I raised my eyes off it, for my
vision was strained to an aching intensity, which I thought must have
occasioned my eye-strings to crack. I looked instinctively about me for
assistance--but all was dismal, silent, and solitary: even the moon had
disappeared among a few clouds that I had not noticed in the sky.

As I stood in this state of indescribable horror, I saw the light
gradually fade away from the tops of the mountains, giving the scene
around me a dim and spectral ghastliness, which, to those who were never
in such a situation, is altogether inconceivable.

At length I thought I heard a noise as it Were of a rushing tempest,
sweeping from the hills down into the valley; but on looking up, I could
perceive nothing but the dusky desolation that brooded over the place.
Still the noise continued; again I saw the coffin move; I then felt
the motion communicated to myself, and found my body borne and swung
backwards and forwards, precisely according to the motion of the coffin.
I again attempted to utter a cry for assistance, but could not: the
motion in my body still continued, as did the approaching noise in the
hills. I looked up a second time in the direction in which the valley
wound off between them, but judge of what I must have suffered, when
I beheld one of the mountains moving, as it were, from its base, and
tumbling down towards the spot on which I stood! In the twinkling of an
eye the whole scene, hills and all, began to tremble, to vibrate, and to
fly round me, with a rapid, delirious motion; the stars shot back into
the depths of heaven, and disappeared; the ground on which I stood began
to pass from beneath my feet; a noise like the breaking of a thousand
gigantic billows again burst from every direction, and I found myself
instantly overwhelmed by some deadly weight, which prostrated me on the
earth, and deprived me of sense and motion.

I know not how long I continued in this state; but I remember that, on
opening my eyes the first object that presented itself to me, was the
sky glowing as before with ten thousand stars, and the moon walking in
her unclouded brightness through the heavens. The whole circumstance
then rushed back upon my mind, but with a sense of horror very much
diminished; I arose, and on looking tow