This could not last long; a constitution of iron strength could
not endure such treatment, and mine was partially broken down by
previous dissipation.
I began to experience a feeling hitherto unknown to me. After the
three days' drinking to which I have just referred, I felt, one night,
as I lay on my bed, an awful sense of something dreadful coming over
me. It was as if I had been partially stunned, and now in an interval
of consciousness was about to have the fearful blow, which had
prostrated me, repeated. There was a craving for sleep, sleep, blessed
sleep, but my eyelids were as if they could not close. Every object
around me I beheld with startling distinctness, and my hearing became
unnaturally acute. Then, to the ringing and roaring in my ears would
suddenly succeed a silence so awful that only the stillness of the
grave might be compared with it.
At other times, strange voices would whisper unintelligible words, and
the slightest noise would make me start like a guilty thing. But the
horrible, burning thirst was insupportable, and to quench it and induce
sleep I clutched again and again the rum bottle, hugged my enemy, and
poured the infernal fluid down my parched throat.
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