as I recollected that I could only be a little
from the spot where the men worked; so
I began to wade along with the water here
about up to my middle. All at once I stopped,
and thought about where I was at work.

"Which way did the water run?"

My head turned hot and my temples throbbed
with the thought, If I went the wrong way
I should be lost—lost in this horrible darkness
—to sink, at last, into the foul, black stream,
to be drowned and devoured by the rats, or else
to be choked by the foul gases that must be
lurking down here in these dark recesses.

Again the horror of thick darkness come
upon me: I shrieked out wildly, and the cry
went echoing through the sewer, sounding
hollow and wild till it faded away. But once
more I got the better of it, and persuaded
myself that I had only cried aloud to scare the rats.
What would I not have given for a stout stick
as a defence against attack as I groped my way
on, feeling convinced that I should be right if I
crawled down stream, when a little reflection
would have told me that up stream must be the
right way, for I must have been borne down by
the water. But I could not reflect, for my brain
seemed in a state of fever, and now and then
my teeth chattered as though I had the ague.

I groped on for quite a quarter of an hour,
when the horrid thought come upon me that I
was going wrong, and again I tried to lean up
against the wall, which seemed to cause my
feet to slip from under me. I felt no cold,
for the perspiration dropped from me, as I
frantically turned back and tried to retrace my
steps, guiding myself by running a hand against
the wall where every now and then it entered
the mouth of a small drain, when, so sure as it
did, there was a scuffle and rush, and more than
once I touched the cold slippery body of a rat,
a touch that made me start back as though shot.

On I went, and on, and still no scaffold, and
no gleam of gaslight. Thought after thought
gave fresh horror to my situation, as now I felt
certain that in my frantic haste I had taken
some wrong turn, or entered a branch of the
main place; and at last, completely bewildered,
I rushed headlong on, stumbling and falling
twice over, so that I was half choked in the
black water. But it had its good effect; for it
put a stop to my wild struggles, which must
soon have ended in my falling insensible into
what was certain death. The water cooled my
head, and now, feeling completely lost, knowing
that I must have been nearly two hours in the
sewer, I made up my mind to follow the
stream to its mouth in the Thames, where, if the
tide was down, I could get from the mud on to
the wharf or bank.

So once more I struggled on, following the
stream slowly for what seemed to be hours, till
at last, raising my hand, I found I could not
touch the roof; and by that knew that I was
in a larger sewer, and therefore not very far from
the mouth. But here there was a new terror
creeping up me, so to speak, for from my waist
the water now touched my chest, and soon
my armpits; when I stopped, not daring
to trust myself to swim, perhaps a mile, when I
felt that weak I could not have gone a hundred
yards.

I know in my disappointment I gave a howl
like a wild beast, and turned again to have a
hard fight to breast the rushing water, which
nearly took me off my legs. But the fear of
death lent me help, and I got on and on again
till I felt myself in a turning which I soon knew
was a smaller sewer, and from thence I reached
another, where I had to stoop; but the water was
shallower, not above my knees, and at last much
less deep than that.

Here I knelt down to rest, and the position
brought something else from my heart; and,
after a while, still stooping, I went on, till, having
passed dozens upon dozens of drains, I determined
to creep up one, and I did.

P'raps you won't think it strange as I dream
and groan in bed sometimes, when I tell you
what followed.

I crawled on, and on, and on, in the hopes
that the place I was in would lead under one of
the street gratings, and I kept staring ahead in
the hopes of catching a gleam of light, till at
last the place seemed so tight that I dared go
no further, for fear of being fixed in. So I
began to back very slowly, and then, feeling it
rather hard work, stopped for a rest.

It was quite dry here, but, scuffling on in
front, I kept hearing the rats I had driven
before me; and now that I stopped and was
quite still, half a dozen of them made a rush to
get past me, and the little fight which followed
even now gives me the horrors. I'd hardly
room to move; but I killed one by squeezing
him, when the others backed off, but not till
my face was bitten and running with blood.

At last, half dead, I tried to back out, for the
place seemed to stifle me; and I pushed myself
back a little way, and then I was stopped, for
the skirts of my jacket filled up what little space
had been left, and I felt that I was wedged in,
stuck fast.

Now came the horrors again worse than ever.
The hot blood seemed to gush into my eyes; I
felt half suffocated; and to add to my sufferings a
rat, that felt itself, as it were, penned up, fastened
upon my lip. It was its last bite, however, for
half mad as I felt then, my teeth had closed in a
moment upon the vicious beast, and it was dead.

I made one more struggle, but could not
move, I was so knocked up; and then I fainted.

It must have been some time before I come
to myself; but when I did, the first sound I
heard was a regular tramp, tramp, of some one
walking over my head, and I gave a long yell
for help, when, to my great joy, the step halted,
and I shrieked again, and the sweetest sound I
have ever heard in my life came back. It was a
voice shouting,

"Hallo!"

"Stuck fast in the drain!" I shouted with
all the strength I had left; and then I swooned
off once more, to wake up a week afterwards
out of a brain-fever sleep in a hospital.