sides. The chasm increased in diameter as it
descended; like an inverted funnel. I might
possibly climb up a wall; but could I creep
along a ceiling?

I shouted as I lay; no one answered. I
shouted again—and again. Then I thought
that too much shouting would exhaust my
strength, and unfit me for the task of mounting.
I measured with my eye the distance
from stratum to stratum of each well-marked
layer of chalk. And then, the successive
beds of flint—they gave me the greatest
hopes. If footholes could only be cut!
Though the feat was difficult, it might be
practicable. The attempt must be made.

I arose, stiff and bruised. No matter. The
first layer of flints was not more than seven
or eight feet overhead. Those once reached,
I could secure a footing, and obtain a first
starting-place for escape. I tried to climb to
them with my feet and hands. Impossible!
the crumbling wall would not support half
my weight. As fast as I attempted to get
handhold or footing, it fell in fragments to the
ground.

But, a better thought—to dig it away, and
make a mound so high that, by standing on
it, I could manage to reach the flint with
my hands. I had my knife to help me;
and, after much hard work, my object was
accomplished, and I got within reach of the
shelf.

My hands had firm hold of the horizontal
flint. They were cut with clinging; but I
found that, by raising myself, and then
thrusting my feet into the chalk and marl, I
could support myself with one hand only,
leaving the other free to work. I did work;
clearing away the chalk above the flint, so as
to give me greater standing room. At last, I
thought I might venture upon the ledge itself.
By a supreme effort, I reached the shelf; but
moisture had made the chalk unctuous and
slippery to the baffled grasp. It was in vain
to think of mounting higher, with no point
of support, no firm footing. A desperate leap
across the chasm afforded not the slightest
hope; because, even if successful, I could not
for one moment maintain the advantage
gained. I was determined to remain on the
ledge of flint. Another moment, and a
rattling on the floor soon taught me my
powerlessness. Down sunk the chalk beneath my
weight; and the stony table fell from its
fixture, only just failing to crush me under it.
Stunned, and cut, and bruised, I spent some
time prostrated by half conscious but acute
sensations of misery. Sleep, which as yet I
had not felt, began to steal over me, but could
gain no mastery. With each moment of
incipient unconsciousness, Charlotte was
presented to me, first, in her wedding-dress;
next, on our terrace beckoning me gaily from
the garden below; then, we were walking
arm-in-arm in smiling conversation; or seated
happily together in my father's library. But
the full consciousness which rapidly succeeded
presented each moment the hideous truth. It
was now broad day; and I realised Charlotte's
sufferings. I beheld her awaiting me in her
bridal dress; now hastening to the window,
and straining her sight over the valley, in the
hope of my approach; now stricken down by
despair at my absence. My father, too, whose
life had been always bound up in mine! These
fancies destroyed my power of thought. I
felt wild and frenzied. I raved and shouted,
and then listened, knowing no answer could
come.

But an answer did come: a maddening
answer. The sound of bells, dull, dead, and
in my hideous well-hole, just distinguishable.
They rang out my marriage peal. Why was
I not buried alive when I first fell?

I could have drunk blood, in my thirst, had
it been offered to me. Die I must, I felt full
well; but let me not die with my mouth in
flame? Then came the struggle of sleep; and
then fitful, tantalising dreams. Charlotte
appeared to me plucking grapes, and dropping
them playfully into my mouth; or catching
water in the hollow of her hand, from the
little cascade in our grotto, and I drank. But
hark! drip, drip, and again drip! Is this
madness still? No. There must be water
oozing somewhere out of the sides of this
detested hole. Where the treacherous wall is
slimiest, where the green patches are brightest
and widest spread on the clammy sides of
my living sepulchre, there will be the spot to
dig and to search.

Again the knife. Every blow gives a
more dead and hollow sound. The chalk
dislodged is certainly not moister; but the
blade sticks fast into wood—the wood of a
cask; something slowly begins to trickle
down. It is brandy!

Brandy! shall I taste it? Yet, why not?
I did; and soon for a time remembered
nothing.

I retained a vivid and excited consciousness
up to one precise moment, which might have
been marked by a stop-watch, and then all
outward things were shut out, as suddenly as
as if a lamp had been extinguished. A
long and utter blank succeeded. I have no
further recollection either of the duration of
time, or of any bodily suffering. Had I died
by alcoholic poison—and it is a miracle the
brandy did not kill me—then would have
been the end of my actual and conscious
existence. My senses were dead. If what
happened afterwards had occurred at that time,
there would have been no story for you to
listen to.

Once more, a burning thirst. Hunger had
entirely passed away. I looked up, and all
was dark; not even the stars or the cloudy
sky were to be seen at the opening of my
cavern. A shower of earth and heavy stones
fell upon me as I lay. I still was barely awake
and conscious, and a groan was the only
evidence which escaped me that I had again
recovered the use of my senses.