THE HASHEESH EATER
his palms with the desperate clinch of one who has yielded
not without agonising resistance. Two tapers at his head,
two at his feet, with their tall and unsnuffed wicks, made the
ghastliness of the bier more luminously unearthly, and a
smothered laugh of derision from some invisible watcher ever
and anon mocked the corpse, as if triumphant demons were
exulting over their prey. I pressed my hands upon my eye-
balls till they ached, in intensity of desire to shut out the
spectacle; I buried my head in the pillow, that I might not
hear that awful laugh of diabolic sarcasm.
But—oh horror immeasurable! I behold the walls of the
room slowly gliding together, the ceiling coming down, the
floor ascending, as of old the lonely captive saw them, whose
cell was doomed to be his coffin. Nearer and nearer am I
borne toward the corpse. I shrunk back from the edge of the
bed; I cowered in most abject fear. I tried to cry out, but
speech was paralysed. The walls came closer and closer
together. Presently my hand lay on the dead man’s fore-
head. I made my arm as straight and rigid as a bar of iron ;
but of what avail was human strength against the contraction
of that cruel masonry? Slowly my elbow bent with the
ponderous pressure; nearer grew the ceiling—I fell into the
fearful embrace of death. I was pent, I was stifled in the
breathless niche, which was all of space still left tome. The
stony eyes stared up into my own, and again the maddening
peal of fiendish laughter rang close beside my ear. Now I
was touched on all sides by the walls of the terrible press;
there came a heavy crush, and I felt all sense blotted out in
darkness.
I awoke at last; the corpse was gone, but I had taken his
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