15
was contrived, that walls, and roof, and windows,
should thus silently and imperceptibly,
without noise, and without motion almost, fold,
as it were, within each other, he knew not.
He only knew they did so; and he vainly
strove to persuade himself it was the intention
of the contriver, to rack the miserable wretch
who might be immured there, with anticipation,
merely, of a fate, from which in the very
crisis of his agony, he was to be reprieved.
Gladly would he have clung even to this
possibility, if his heart would have let him;
but he felt a dreadful assurance of its fallacy.
And what matchless inhumanity it was to
doom the sufferer to such ligering torments—
to lead him day by day to so appalling a death,
unsupported by the consolations of religion,
unvisited by any human being, abandoned to
himself, deserted ef all, and denied even the
sad privilege of knowing that his cruel destiny
would awaken pity! Alone he was to
perish!—alone he was to wait a slow coming
torture, whose most exquisite pangs would be
inflicted by that very solitude and that tardy
coming!
“ It is not death I fear, ” he exclaimed,
“ but the death I mast prepare for! Methinks,
too, I could meet even that—all horrible and
revolting as it is—if it might overtake me
now. But where shall I find fortitude to
tarry till it come! How can I outlive the
three long days and nights I have to live?
