On the table beside me burned a lamp, and near it lay a little box. It was of no remarkable character, and I had seen it frequently before, for it was the property of the family physician; but how came it there, upon my table, and why did I shudder in regarding it? These things were in no manner to be accounted for, and my eyes at length dropped to the open pages of a book, and to a sentence underscored therein. The words were the singular but simple ones of the poet Ebn Zaiat, "Dicebant mihi sodales si sepulchrum amicae visitarem, curas meas aliquantulum fore levatas." Why then, as I perused them, did the hairs of my head erect themselves on end, and the blood of my body become congealed within my veins?
There came a light tap at the library door, and pale as the tenant of a tomb, a menial entered upon tiptoe. His looks were wild with terror, and he spoke to me in a voice tremulous, husky, and very low. What said he?–some broken sentences I heard. He told of a wild cry disturbing the silence of the night–of the gathering together of the household-of a search in the direction of the sound;–and then his tones grew thrillingly distinct as he whispered me of a violated grave–of a disfigured body enshrouded, yet still breathing, still palpitating, still alive!
He pointed to garments;–they were muddy and clotted with gore. I spoke not, and he took me gently by the hand;–it was indented with the impress of human nails. He directed my attention to some object against the wall;–I looked at it for some minutes;–it was a spade. With a shriek I bounded to the table, and grasped the box that lay upon it. But I could not force it open; and in my tremor it slipped from my hands, and fell heavily, and burst into pieces; and from it, with a rattling sound, there rolled out some instruments of dental surgery, intermingled with thirty-two small, white and ivory-looking substances that were scattered to and fro about the floor.