I had often read
that the body of a presumptuous sinner, who, during life, had been the
willing creature of every satanic impulse, had been known, after the
human tenant had deserted it, to become the horrible sport of demoniac
possession. I was roused 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 forbade 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, Dr. D---- told me that he had never before witnessed a seizure
which seemed to combine the symptoms of so many kinds, and yet which
belonged to none of the recognized classes; it certainly was not
apoplexy, catalepsy, nor _delirium tremens_, and yet it seemed, in some
degree, to partake of the properties of all. It was strange, but
stranger things are coming. During two or three days Dr. D---- would not allow his patient to
converse in a manner which could excite or exhaust him, with anyone; he
suffered him merely as briefly as possible to express his immediate
wants. And it was not until the fourth day after my early visit, the
particulars of which I have just detailed, that it was thought expedient
that I should see him, and then only because it appeared that his
extreme importunity and impatience to meet me were likely to retard
his recovery more than the mere exhaustion attendant upon a short
conversation could possibly do. Perhaps, too, my friend entertained some
hope that if by holy confession his patient's bosom were eased of the
perilous stuff which no doubt oppressed it, his recovery would be more
assured and rapid. It was then, as I have said, upon the fourth day
after my first professional call, that I found myself once more in the
dreary chamber of want and sickness. The man was in bed, and appeared low and restless. On my entering the
room he raised himself in the bed, and muttered, twice or thrice,--

"Thank God! thank God!" I signed to those of his family who stood by to leave the room, and took
a chair beside the bed. So soon as we were alone, he said, rather
doggedly,--

"There's no use in telling me of the sinfulness of bad ways--I know it
all. I know where they lead to--I have seen everything about it with my
own eyesight, as plain as I see you." He rolled himself in the bed, as
if to hide his face in the clothes; and then suddenly raising himself,
he exclaimed with startling vehemence, "Look, sir! there is no use in
mincing the matter: I'm blasted with the fires of hell; I have been in
hell. What do you think of that? In hell--I'm lost for ever--I have not
a chance. I am damned already--damned--damned!" The end of this sentence he actually shouted. His vehemence was
perfectly terrific; he threw himself back, and laughed, and sobbed
hysterically. I poured some water into a tea-cup, and gave it to him. After he had swallowed it, I told him if he had anything to communicate,
to do so as briefly as he could, and in a manner as little agitating to
himself as possible; threatening at the same time, though I had no
intention of doing so, to leave him at once in case he again gave way to
such passionate excitement. "It's only foolishness," he continued, "for me to try to thank you for
coming to such a villain as myself at all. It's no use for me to wish
good to you, or to bless you; for such as me has no blessings to give." I told him that I had but done my duty, and urged him to proceed to the
matter which weighed upon his mind. He then spoke nearly as follows:--

"I came in drunk on Friday night last, and got to my bed here; I don't
remember how. Sometime in the night it seemed to me I wakened, and
feeling unasy in myself, I got up out of the bed. I wanted the fresh
air; but I would not make a noise to open the window, for fear I'd waken
the crathurs. It was very dark and throublesome to find the door; but at
last I did get it, and I groped my way out, and went down as asy as I
could. I felt quite sober, and I counted the steps one after another, as
I was going down, that I might not stumble at the bottom. "When I came to the first landing-place--God be about us always!--the
floor of it sunk under me, and I went down--down--down, till the senses
almost left me. I do not know how long I was falling, but it seemed to
me a great while. When I came rightly to myself at last, I was sitting
near the top of a great table; and I could not see the end of it, if it
had any, it was so far off. And there was men beyond reckoning sitting
down all along by it, at each side, as far as I could see at all. I did
not know at first was it in the open air; but there was a close
smothering feel in it that was not natural. And there was a kind of
light that my eyesight never saw before, red and unsteady; and I did not
see for a long time where it was coming from, until I looked straight
up, and then I seen that it came from great balls of blood-coloured fire
that were rolling high overhead with a sort of rushing, trembling sound,
and I perceived that they shone on the ribs of a great roof of rock
that was arched overhead instead of the sky. When I seen this, scarce
knowing what I did, I got up, and I said, 'I have no right to be here; I
must go.' And the man that was sitting at my left hand only smiled, and
said, 'Sit down again; you can _never_ leave this place.' And his voice
was weaker than any child's voice I ever heerd; and when he was done
speaking he smiled again. "Then I spoke out very loud and bold, and I said, 'In the name of God,
let me out of this bad place.' And there was a great man that I did not
see before, sitting at the end of the table that I was near; and he was
taller than twelve men, and his face was very proud and terrible to look
at.