AN OVERDOSE OF HASHEESH, 513 



and re-echoed like a refrain, " In lonely agony forever ! " Then ensued 

 a wild and terrible commingling of unsyllabled sounds, so unearthly 

 that it is not in the power of language to fitly describe them. It was 

 something like a mighty Niagara of shrieks and groans, combined with 

 the fearful din and crash of thousands of battles and the thunderous 

 roar of a stormy sea. Over it all came again the same grandly domi- 

 nant voice, sternly reiterating the four last words of doom, " In lonely 

 agony forever ! " and all the universe seemed to vibrate with them. 



Silence reigned again. A strange, brassy light prevailed ; rapid 

 and fierce lightning flashed incessantly in all directions, and the shaft- 

 like opening about me closed together. Impelled by a resistless force 

 I still rose, although now against a crushing pressure and an active 

 resistance which seemed to beat me back, and I fought my upward 

 way in an agony which resembled nothing so much as the terrible 

 moment when, from strangling or suffocation, all the forces of life 

 struggle against death, and wrestle madly for another breath. In 

 place of the woful sounds now reigned a deadly stillness, broken only 

 at long but regular intervals by a loud report, as if a cannon, louder 

 than any I ever heard on earth, were discharged at my side, almost 

 shot into me, I might say, for the sound appeared to rend me from 

 head to foot, and then die away into the dark chaos about me in 

 strange, shuddering reverberations. Even in the misery of my ascend- 

 ing I was filled with a dread expectancy of the cruel sound. It gave 

 me a feeling of acute physical torture, with a lingering intensity that 

 bodily suffering could not have. It was repeated an incredible num- 

 ber of times, and always with the same suffering and shock to me. 

 At last the sound came oftener, but with less force, and I seemed 

 again nearing the shores of time. Dimly in the far distance I saw 

 the room I had left, myself lying still and death-like upon the bed, 

 and the friends watching me. I knew, with no pleasure in the knowl- 

 edge, that I should presently reanimate the form I had left. Then, 

 silently and invisibly, I floated into the room, and was one with my- 

 self again. 



Faint and exhausted, but conscious, the seal of silence still on my 

 lips, with all the energy I was capable of I struggled to speak, to 

 move, to make some sign which my friends would understand ; but I 

 was as mutely powerless as if in the clutch of paralysis. I could hear 

 every word that was spoken, but the sound seemed strangely far away. 

 I could not open my eyes without a stupendous effort, and then only 

 for an instant. " She is conscious now," I heard one of the doctors say, 

 and he gently lifted the lids of my eyes and looked into them. I tried 

 my best then to throw all the intelligence I could into them, and re- 

 turned his look with one of recognition. But, even with my eyes fixed 

 on his, I felt myself going again in spite of my craving to stay. I 

 longed to implore the doctor to save me, to keep me from the unutter- 

 able anguish of falling into the vastness and vagueness of that shadowy 



TOL. XXIV. — 33 



