He
left us at my bidding, and I put up a prayer that my doubts should
be removed. Thy eyes were shut and thy ears sealed to the vision
that answered my prayer.
"I was indeed deceived. The form thou hast seen was the
incarnation of a demon. The visage and voice which urged me to the
sacrifice of my family were his. Now he personates a human form;
then he was environed with the luster of heaven.
"Clara," he continued, advancing closer to me, "thy death must
come. This minister is evil, but he from whom his commission was
received is God. Submit then with all thy wonted resignation to a
decree that cannot be reversed or resisted. Mark the clock. Three
minutes are allowed to thee, in which to call up thy fortitude and
prepare thee for thy doom." There he stopped.
Even now, when this scene exists only in memory, when life and all
its functions have sunk into torpor, my pulse throbs, and my hairs
uprise; my brows are knit, as then, and I gaze around me in
distraction. I was unconquerably averse to death; but death,
imminent and full of agony as that which was threatened, was
nothing.
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