I entered into a series of elaborate precautions.
Among other things, I had the family vault so remodelled as to admit
of being readily opened from within. The slightest pressure upon a
long lever that extended far into the tomb would cause the iron portal
to fly back. There were arrangements also for the free admission of
air and light, and convenient receptacles for food and water, within
immediate reach of the coffin intended for my reception. This coffin
was warmly and softly padded, and was provided with a lid, fashioned
upon the principle of the vault-door, with the addition of springs
so contrived that the feeblest movement of the body would be
sufficient to set it at liberty. Besides all this, there was suspended
from the roof of the tomb, a large bell, the rope of which, it was
designed, should extend through a hole in the coffin, and so be
fastened to one of the hands of the corpse. But, alas? what avails the
vigilance against the Destiny of man? Not even these well-contrived
securities sufficed to save from the uttermost agonies of living
inhumation, a wretch to these agonies foredoomed!
There arrived an epoch- as often before there had arrived- in
which I found myself emerging from total unconsciousness into the
first feeble and indefinite sense of existence.
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