Two years ago--I had been there a year then--I was sitting all alone in the watch-room, one gusty winter's night, chilled, numb, comfortless; drowsing gradually into unconsciousness; the sobbing of the wind and the slamming of distant shutters falling fainter and fainter upon my dulling ear each moment, when sharp and suddenly that dead-bell rang out a blood-curdling alarum over my head! The shock of it nearly paralyzed me; for it was the first time I had ever heard it.
I gathered myself together and flew to the corpse-room.

About midway down the outside rank, a shrouded figure was sitting upright, wagging its head slowly from one side to the other--a grisly spectacle! Its side was toward me.

I hurried to it and peered into its face.

Heavens, it was Adler! Can you divine what my first thought was?
Put into words, it was this: 'It seems, then, you escaped me once: there will be a different result this time!' Evidently this creature was suffering unimaginable terrors.

Think what it must have been to wake up in the midst of that voiceless hush, and, look out over that grim congregation of the dead! What gratitude shone in his skinny white face when he saw a living form before him! And how the fervency of this mute gratitude was augmented when his eyes fell upon the life-giving cordials which I carried in my hands! Then imagine the horror which came into this pinched face when I put the cordials behind me, and said mockingly-- 'Speak up, Franz Adler--call upon these dead.