contributed to hasten the death of the patient, but had rifled his
property and fled.

This suspicion would, perhaps, have yielded to mature reflections, if I
had been suffered to reflect. A moment scarcely elapsed, when some
appearance in the mirror, which hung over the table, called my
attention. It was a human figure. Nothing could be briefer than the
glance that I fixed upon this apparition; yet there was room enough for
the vague conception to suggest itself, that the dying man had started
from his bed and was approaching me. This belief was, at the same
instant, confuted, by the survey of his form and garb. One eye, a scar
upon his cheek, a tawny skin, a form grotesquely misproportioned, brawny
as Hercules, and habited in livery, composed, as it were, the parts of
one view.

To perceive, to fear, and to confront this apparition were blended into
one sentiment. I turned towards him with the swiftness of lightning; but
my speed was useless to my safety. A blow upon my temple was succeeded
by an utter oblivion of thought and of feeling. I sunk upon the floor
prostrate and senseless.

My insensibility might be mistaken by observers for death, yet some part
of this interval was haunted by a fearful dream. I conceived myself
lying on the brink of a pit, whose bottom the eye could not reach. My
hands and legs were fettered, so as to disable me from resisting two
grim and gigantic figures who stooped to lift me from the earth. Their
purpose, methought, was to cast me into this abyss. My terrors were
unspeakable, and I struggled with such force, that my bonds snapped and
I found myself at liberty. At this moment my senses returned, and I
opened my eyes.