I was not saved as yet, but my heart beat with renewed hope. I had
ceased pushing and remained motionless, lest a sudden fall of earth
should bury me. I intended to use the lid as a screen and, thus
protected, to open a sort of shaft in the clayey soil. Unfortunately
I was assailed by unexpected difficulties. Some heavy clods of earth
weighed upon the boards and made them unmanageable; I foresaw that I
should never reach the surface in that way, for the mass of soil was
already bending my spine and crushing my face.
Once more I stopped, affrighted; then suddenly, while I was stretching
my legs, trying to find something firm against which I might rest my
feet, I felt the end board of the coffin yielding. I at once gave a
desperate kick with my heels in the faint hope that there might be a
freshly dug grave in that direction.
It was so. My feet abruptly forced their way into space. An open grave
was there; I had only a slight partition of earth to displace, and soon
I rolled into the cavity. I was saved!
I remained for a time lying on my back in the open grave, with my
eyes raised to heaven. It was dark; the stars were shining in a sky of
velvety blueness. Now and then the rising breeze wafted a springlike
freshness, a perfume of foliage, upon me.
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