Page:The Great Secret.djvu/93

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ADELA'S DREAM.
77

that I was nearly the last to be lifted up, which made it worse for me.

"I could hear them talking as they went about their hideous task, which they executed hurriedly, for they wanted it over. As they came nearer to me, they were speaking about the sharks having a good feed, and how they had been swarming about and following the ship all the morning. This, then, was to be my doom, to be thrown alive, and torn to pieces by those voracious monsters.

"I tried to rise and show myself now, so that the men might kill me first, but I could not move. I strained my heart in the attempt to shriek, but no sound came, and then I became aware that I had fallen into that state of coma which I had so often read about, when people are supposed to be dead, and in this condition buried, yet seeing and feeling the most acute sensations all the time.

"At last my turn came, and I was lifted by two men, one holding my shoulders, and the other my legs, and then I was carried up the companion-steps to the open deck, my mental anguish so intense during that short journey that I thought it might have broken any natural spell; but it did not.

"Several of the Anarchists, male and female, were then leaning over the ship's side, and holding up their children so that they might see the sharks at their gruesome work. My husband was not there, neither did I expect him, for he had none of that morbid curiosity which common minds have; but I heard the laughter of the little children, and saw the fiendish pleasure glowing in the faces of their mothers, and knew what I had to expect.

"My bearers paused for a moment by the side