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 blood curdled in my veins! A shrill cry, piercing, prolonged, and melancholy, echoed through the hollow arches of my tomb. A cold perspiration broke out all over my body--my heart beat so loudly that I could hear it thumping against my ribs. Again--again--that weird shriek, followed by a whir and flap of wings. I breathed again.
"It is an owl," I said to myself, ashamed of my fears; "a poor innocent bird--a companion and watcher of the dead, and therefore its voice is full of sorrowful lamentation--but it is harmless," and I crept on with increased caution. Suddenly out of the dense darkness there stared two large yellow eyes, glittering with fiendish hunger and cruelty. For a moment I was startled, and stepped back; the creature flew at me with the ferocity of a tiger-cat! I fought with the horrible thing in all directions; it wheeled round my head, it pounced toward my face, it beat me with its large wings--wings that I could feel but not see; the yellow eyes alone shone in the thick gloom like the eyes of some vindictive demon! I struck at it right and left--the revolting combat lasted some moments--I grew sick and dizzy, yet I battled on recklessly. At last, thank Heaven! the huge owl was vanquished; it fluttered backward and downward, apparently exhausted, giving one wild screech of baffled fury, as its lamp-like eyes disappeared in the darkness. Breathless, but not subdued--every nerve in my body quivering with excitement--I pursued my way, as I thought, toward the stone staircase feeling the air with my outstretched hands as I groped along. In a little while I met with an obstruction--it was hard and cold--a stone wall, surely? I felt it up and down and found a hollow in it--was this the first step of the stair? I wondered; it seemed very high. I touched it cautiously--suddenly I came in contact with something soft and clammy to the touch like moss or wet velvet. Fingering this with a kind of repulsion, I soon traced out the oblong shape of a coffin Curiously enough, I was not affected much by the discovery. I found myself monotonously counting the bits of raised metal which served, as I judged, for its ornamentation. Eight bits lengthwise--and the soft wet stuff between--four bits across; then a pang shot through me, and I drew my hand away quickly, as I considered--WHOSE coffin was this? My father's? Or was I thus plucking, like a man in delirium, at the fragments of velvet on that cumbrous oaken casket wherein lay the sacred ashes of my mother's perished beauty? I roused myself from the apathy into which I had fallen. All the pains I had taken to find my way through the vault were wasted; I was lost in the profound gloom, and knew not where to turn. The horror of my situation presented itself to me with redoubled force. I began to be tormented with thirst. I fell on my knees and groaned aloud.