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The resonant hammering of a coffin lid is no pleasant thing to hear, but those who have experience maintain that much more terrible is the soft swish of the bedlinen, the reeving and unreeving of the bed tapes, when he who has fallen by the roadside is apparelled for burial, sinking gradually as the tapes are tied over, till the swaddled shape touches the floor … |
This is from “At the End of the Passage” in Life’s Handicap. Hummil, a young engineer in a remote station, in the worst of the hot season, has been afflicted by fearful dreams, so badly that he puts a sharp spur in his bed so as not to fall asleep. He is found by his friends, dead of heat exhaustion, or maybe sheer terror, if the look in his eyes was anything to go by … |
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