me by the hand! I smiled as I pictured the scene of rejoicing at the
dear old villa--the happy home sanctified by perfect friendship and
faithful love!

A deep hollow sound booming suddenly on my ears startled me--one!
two! three! I counted the strokes up to twelve. It was some church
bell tolling the hour. My pleasing fancies dispersed--I again faced
the drear reality of my position. Twelve o'clock! Midday or
midnight? I could not tell. I began to calculate. It was early
morning when I had been taken ill--not much past eight when I had
met the monk and sought his assistance for the poor little fruit-
seller who had after all perished alone in his sufferings. Now
supposing my illness had lasted some hours, I might have fallen into
a trance--died--as those around me had thought, somewhere about
noon. In that case they would certainly have buried me with as
little delay as possible--before sunset at all events. Thinking
these points over one by one, I came to the conclusion that the bell
I had just heard must have struck midnight--the midnight of the very
day of my burial. I shivered; a kind of nervous dread stole over me.
I have always been physically courageous, but at the same time, in
spite of my education, I am somewhat superstitious--what Neapolitan
is not? it runs in the southern blood. And there was something
unutterably fearful in the sound of that midnight bell clanging
harshly on the ears of a man pent up alive in a funeral vault with
the decaying bodies of his ancestors close within reach of his hand!
I tried to conquer my feelings--to summon up my fortitude. I
endeavored to reason out the best method of escape. I resolved to
feel my way, if possible, to the steps of the vault, and with this
idea in my mind I put out my hands and began to move along slowly
and with the utmost care. What was that? I stopped; I listened; the