ver. Little
by little the exhausted breath came back, and with it a slow
realization of his situation. Had he killed Burke? He stared down
toward the spot where he knew the body lay, but could perceive nothing.
The mystery of the dark suddenly unnerved him; he could feel his hands
tremble violently as he groped cautiously along the smooth surface of
the rock. He experienced a shrinking, nervous dread of coming into
contact with that man lying there beneath the black mantle, that
hideous, silent form, perhaps done to death by his hands. It was a
revolt of the soul. A moment he actually thought he was losing his
mind, feverish fancies playing grim tricks before his strained,
agonized vision, imagination peopling the black void with a riot of
grotesque figures.

He gripped himself slowly and sternly, his jaws set, his tingling
nerves mastered by the resolute dominance of an aroused will.
Compelling himself to the act, he bent down, feeling along the ground
for the foreman's hat having the extinguished lamp fixed on it. He was
a long time discovering his object, yet the continued effort brought
back a large measure of self-control, and gave birth to a certain
clearness of perception. He held the recovered lamp in his hands,
leaning against the side of the tunnel, listening. The very intensity
of silence seemed to press against him from every direction as though
it had weight. He was still breathing heavily, but his strained ears
could not distinguish the slightest sound where he knew Burke lay
shrouded In the darkness. Nothing reached him to break the dread,
horrible silence, excepting that far-off, lonely trickle of dripping
water. He hesitated, match in hand, shrinking childishly from the
coming revealment of his victim. Yet why should he? Fierce as the
struggle had proved, on his part the fight had been entirely one of
defence. He had been attacked, and had fought back only in
self-preservation. Winston harbored no animosity; the fierceness of
actual combat past, he dreaded now beyond expression the thought that
through his savagery a human life might have been sacrificed. The tiny
flame of the ignited match played across his white face, caught the
wick of the lamp, and flared up in faint radiance through the gloom.
Burke, huddled into the rock shadow, never stirred, and the anxious
engineer bent over his motionless form in a horrid agony of fear. The
man rested partially upon one side, his hands still