vain attempted to persuade her she was laboring under some delusion. The next day the body of Keysnewsky was disinterred, and twenty guns were fired at its skull which, being shattered to fragments, was amidst yells and dances, burnt to ashes. The girl, however, died within the fortnight, persisting to the last that she had been bitten by a vampire, though she would not suffer the wound to be examined. After her death, the doctor took off the bandage from her neck and discovered a small wound which had the appearance of having been made by a harnessmaker’s awl, and poisoned. The doctor then learned that one of the poor girl’s rejected suitors was a harnessmaker of an adjacent village, and he did not doubt that it was he who stabbed the hapless bride. He gave information to the authorities, but the young man, hearing that he was to be arrested fled to the mountains and committed suicide by plunging into it cataract. Nothing like an incredulous doctor for converting a spirit into flesh and blood.
From— The Opelousas Courier. [volume] (Opelousas, La.), 24 Nov. 1855. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Lib. of Congress.
|
|
|