rst
to arise.

I looked upon the poor, sobbing, helpless creatures who knelt so humbly
around me, and my heart bled for them. With a natural transition I
turned my eyes from them to the bed in which the body lay; and, great
God! what was the revulsion, the horror which I experienced on seeing
the corpse-like terrific thing seated half upright before me; the white
cloths which had been wound about the head had now partly slipped from
their position, and were hanging in grotesque festoons about the face
and shoulders, while the distorted eyes leered from amid them--

'A sight to dream of, not to tell.'

I stood actually riveted to the spot. The figure nodded its head and
lifted its arm, I thought, with a menacing gesture. A thousand confused
and horrible thoughts at once rushed upon my mind. I had often read
that the body of a presumptuous sinner, who, during life, had been the
willing creature of every satanic impulse, after the human tenant had
deserted it, had been known to become the horrible sport of demoniac
possession.

I was roused from the stupefaction of terror in which I stood, by the
piercing scream of the mother, who now, for the first time, perceived
the change which had taken place. She rushed towards the bed, but
stunned by the shock, and overcome by the conflict of violent emotions,
before she reached it she fell prostrate upon the floor.

I am perfectly convinced that had I not been startled from the torpidity
of horror in which I was bound by some powerful and arousing stimulant,
I should have gazed upon this unearthly apparition until I had fairly
lost my senses. As it was, however, the spell was broken--superstition
gave way to reason: the man whom all believed to have been actually dead
was living!

Dr. D---- was instantly standing by the bedside, and upon examination he
found that a sudden and copious flow of blood had taken place from the
wound which the lancet had left; and this, no doubt, had effected his
sudden and almost preternatural restoration to an existence from which
all thought he had been for ever removed. The man was still speechless,
but he seemed to understand the physician when he forbid his repeating
the painful and fruitless attempts which he made to articulate, and he
at once resigned himself quietly into his hands.

I left the patient with leeches upon his temples, and bleeding freely,
apparently with little of the drowsiness which accompanies apoplexy;
indeed