Fifteen Years in Hell eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 177 pages of information about Fifteen Years in Hell.

Fifteen Years in Hell eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 177 pages of information about Fifteen Years in Hell.
face and look of a demon, and from every part of the room their eyes glared at me; others had their throats gashed to the very spine, while every one of them accused me of being the cause of their misery.  Then devils and men would rush at me and pin me to the wall of my room, by driving sharp, red-hot spikes through my body.  I could see and feel the blood streaming from my wounds until my clothes were covered with it.  Then they would take red-hot irons, and burn and scrape my flesh from my bones.  They would pull and tear my teeth out, and dash them in my face.  Then they would take sharp, crooked knife blades, and run them through my body, and tear me to pieces, and hold up before my eyes my bleeding, burned and quivering flesh, and it would turn to bloody, hissing snakes.  Then I looked and could see my coffin and dead body.  Then I came back to life again, and I heard voices under my head cursing me, and saying that they would bury me alive.  At this the devils seized me, and I could feel myself flying through the air.  At last they stopped, and I heard a heavy door open.  They dragged me into what they told me was a vault, and, when I tried to escape, I found nothing but solid walls.  The floor was stone, and slippery and slimy.  I could hear rats and mice running over the floor.  They would run up my sleeves and down my neck.  In trying to escape from them I struck a coffin; it fell on the hard stone floor and burst open; then the room lighted up, and the skeleton from the burst coffin stood up before me, and a long, slimy snake crawled up and wrapped the skeleton to the very neck; and that horrid thing of bones, with a living snake coiled all about it, walked up to me and laid its bony fingers on my face.  No language can give the least idea of the horrid sights and sufferings in the drunkard’s madness.

CHAPTER XIII.

Recovery—­Trip to Maine—­Lecturing in that State—­Dr. Reynolds, the “Dare to do right” reformer—­Return to Indianapolis—­Lecturing—­Newspaper extracts—­The criticisms of the press—­Private letters of encouragement—­ Friends dear to memory—­Sacred names.

After recovering from the debauch just described, which I did in the course of two or three days, I went East to the State of Maine, where I remained about three months, lecturing in all the principal cities, and in some of them a number of times.  In Bangor, especially, I was warmly welcomed, and I spoke there as often as ten times, each time to a crowded house.  Dr. Reynolds, the celebrated “Dare to do right” reformer, was at that time a resident of Bangor, and I had the honor to make his acquaintance.  While in Bangor I made my headquarters at his office, and was much benefited and strengthened by coming in contact with him.  Days and weeks passed, and I did not taste liquor, although at times, when depressed and tired from over-work, I found it difficult in the extreme to resist the cravings of my appetite.

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Fifteen Years in Hell from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.