All was confused and inexplicable. Open my eyes as wide as I might, I could not pierce the Stygian gloom. I tried to move, but could not--could not stir a limb, and only the fingers of my hand. The air was steamy and hot, and I was surrounded by something which chained every part. I strove to collect my thoughts. I remembered the consultation in the hut, the coming unconsciousness, and--my present awakening. My first impression, after this, was that the house had fallen over me. I clenched my hands--_they closed upon earth_! I reached forward and licked the darkness. _I tasted earth!_--and then came the sudden, overwhelming knowledge-- I WAS BURIED ALIVE!! No pen can draw the faintest picture, no soul conceive the unutterable horror, unless that soul has gone through the same awful experience that filled my soul at that discovery. Such a whirlwind of fire as seethed through my bursting brain, such a perfect blaze of all the passions that can rack the human mind, I cannot portray with this feeble pen. For a moment I was frantic, and then suddenly a dreadful and frightful calmness soothed my frame. Ay, I was buried alive! The savages had mistaken my trance-like stupor for death itself, and I had been hurried prematurely into the grave. Oh, the appalling discovery! To die while in the grave! The thought was too horrible! I was not yet ready to give way to utter despair. I durst not pause a second for thought, for I knew it would surely come. I twisted and struggled with the strength of fury. I could turn my body around, and use my arms. There was an open space before my face, as I had been buried in the sitting position. Had I lain back I could not have survived five minutes; as it was, my limbs were immovably secured, and it _was absolutely impossible for me to free myself_. It was a long time, for such an experience, before I admitted this, but I was compelled to at last. Death by suffocation was rapidly approaching, and all that was left for me was to prepare for it. The small breath of air around me had already been breathed over and over again, and was become hot, steamy, and sickening. I was gasping and panting, but strove to collect my thoughts and keep them from wandering. I commenced praying. Suddenly a muffled sound reached my ear, as though something had fallen to the earth above. I listened--it was repeated directly over me, now rapidly and regularly. What could it mean? Was it the sign of dissolution, or was it real? I listened, and heard it plainer and plainer above the mild throbs of my heart. _It was real!_ Something or somebody was digging at the grave above! Could I now hold out till I was reached? The air had already become _thick and palpable_, and strange fires were flitting before my eyes. I held my breath till the distended blood-vessels seemed bursting, and then as I respired, the earth turned to soft _mud_ around me; and then the long-labored inspiration was like drawing in some loathsome reptile.