Cruel As The Grave

So she lay like one dead, except in being clearly conscious of all that

was going on around her. She knew when Lyon laid down, and when he went

to sleep. And still she lay in that heavy state, which was at once a

profound repose and a clear consciousness, for perhaps an hour longer,

when suddenly the stillness of the scene was stirred by a sound so

slight that it could only have been heard by one whose senses were, like

hers at that time, preternaturally acute. The sound was of the slow,

cautious turning of a door upon its hinges!

Without moving hand or foot, she just languidly lifted her eyelids, and

looked around upon the dim darkness.

There was a faint glow from the smouldering fire on the flagstone floor,

and there was a faint light from the starlit night coming through the

windows. By the aid of these she saw, as in a dream, the door of the

vault wide open!

In her profound state of conscious repose there was no fear of danger,

and no wish to move. So, still as in a dream, she witnessed what

followed.

First a dark, shrouded figure issued from the vault, and turned around

and bent down towards it, as if speaking to some one within. But no word

was heard. Then the figure backed a pace, drawing up from the steps of

the vault what seemed to be a long narrow box. As this box came up, it

was followed by another dark, shrouded figure, who supported its other

end. And as the two mysterious apparitions now stood beside the altar,

Sybil saw that the box that they held between them was a coffin!

Nor was that all. While they moved a little down the side wall, they

were followed by two other strange figures, issuing from the vault in

the same order, and bearing between them, in the same manner, a second

coffin; and as they, in their turn, filed down the side wall, they also

were followed by still two others coming up out of the vault, and

bringing with them a third coffin!

And then a ghastly procession formed against the side wall. Three long

shadowy coffins borne by six dark shrouded figures, filed past the

gothic windows, and disappeared through the open chapel door.

Sybil clearly saw all this, as in a nightmare from which she could not

escape; she still lay motionless, speechless, and helpless, until she

quite lost consciousness in a profound and dreamless sleep. So deep and

heavy was this sleep, that she had no sense of existence for many hours.

When at length she did awake, it seemed almost to a new life, so

utterly, for a time, was all that had recently past forgotten. But as

she arose and looked around, and collected her faculties, and remembered

her position, she was astonished to see by the shining of the sun into

the western windows, that it was late in the afternoon, and that they

had slept nearly all day, for her husband was still sleeping heavily.