Breathless and bewildered, the carpenter and I bolted out of this infernal palace into the open air, mightily relieved at our escape from the darkness and the terrors of the subterranean vaults. We had not been out a moment, and had by no means collected our ideas, before our alarm was again excited to its utmost pitch.
The evil one came forth in bodily shape, and stood revealed to our eyes distinctly in the pale light of the moon.
While we were gazing upon the appearance, the carpenter's son, whom we had quite forgotten in our hurry, came creeping out of the doorway of the tomb upon his hands and knees.
"Why, father!" said he, after a moment's silence, "if that is not old Fatima's donkey, which has been lost these two days! It is lucky that we have found it, for it must have wandered into this tomb, and it might have been starved if we had not met with it to-night."
The carpenter looked rather ashamed of the adventure; and as for myself, though I was glad that nothing worse had come of it, I took comfort in the reflection that I was not the first person who had been alarmed by the proceedings of an ass.
I have related the history of this adventure because I think that, on some foundation like this, many well-accredited ghost stories may have been founded. Numerous legends and traditions, which appear to be supernatural or miraculous, and the truth of which has been attested and sworn to by credible witnesses, have doubtless arisen out of facts which actually did occur, but of which some essential particulars have been either concealed, or had escaped notice; and thus many marvellous histories have gone abroad, which are so well attested, that although common sense forbids their being believed, they cannot be proved to be false. In this case, if the donkey had not fortunately come out and shown himself, I should certainly have returned to Europe half impressed with the belief that something supernatural had occurred, which was in some mysterious manner connected with the opening of the magic volume which we had taken from the altar in the tomb. The echoes of the subterranean cave so altered the sound of the donkey's bray, that I never should have discovered that these fearful sounds had so undignified an origin; a story never loses by telling, and with a little gradual exaggeration it would soon have become one of the best accredited supernatural histories in the country.