It lay
there as if dropped from some tree of chaos, haggard with the snows of
eternity--a huge misshapen nut, with a corpse for its kernel.
"But the lightning would soon have revealed a more terrible sight still,
had there been any eyes to behold it. At midnight, while a peal of thunder
was just dying away in the distance, the crust of death flew asunder,
rending in all directions; and, pale as his investiture, staring with
ghastly eyes, the form of Karl started up sitting on the couch. Had he not
been far beyond ordinary men in strength, he could not thus have rent his
sepulchre. Indeed, had Teufelsbuerst been able to finish his task by the
additional layer of gypsum which he contemplated, he must have died the
moment life revived; although, so long as the trance lasted, neither the
exclusion from the air, nor the practical solidification of the walls of
his chest, could do him any injury. He had lain unconscious throughout the
operations of Teufelsbuerst, but now the catalepsy had passed away,
possibly under the influence of the electric condition of the atmosphere.
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