orgot that my thumb was
aching.

As soon as I was well awake, my thoughts returned to the subject of
trapping my tormentor. I was quite sure he would return to trouble me,
for I already had some indications of his presence. The weather still
continued calm, and I could hear any occasional sounds very distinctly.
I heard what resembled the pattering of little feet, as of the rat
running over the lid of an empty box; and once or twice I clearly
distinguished the short, shrill cricket-like "chirp" that rats are wont
to utter. I can think of no more disagreeable sound than the voice of a
rat, and at that time it sounded doubly disagreeable. You may smile at
my simple fears, but I could not help them. I could not help a
presentiment that somehow or other my life was in danger from the
presence of this rat, and the presentiment was not a vain or idle one,
as you shall afterwards learn.

The fear that I had, then, was that the rat would attack me in my sleep.
So long as I might be awake, I was not much afraid that it could do me
any very great injury. It might bite me, as it had done already, but
that signified little. I should be able to destroy it somehow. But
supposing I should fall into a deep sleep, and the spiteful creature
should then seize me by the throat? Some such idea as this it was that
kept me in misery. I could not always keep awake and on the _qui vive_.
The longer I did so, the more deeply would I slumber afterwards, and
then would be the time of danger. I could not go to sleep again with
any feeling of security until that rat was destroyed; and therefore its
destruction was the end I now aimed at.

I remained cogitating as to how I should encompass it; but for the life
of me I could think of no other way than to gripe the creature in my
hands, and squeeze it to death. If I could have made sure of getting a
proper hold of it--that is, with my fingers round its throat, so that it
could not turn its teeth upon me--then the thing would be easy enough.
But therein lay the difficulty. I should have to seize it in the dark--
at random--and likely enough it would prove as quick as myself in
getting the advantage of the hold. Moreover, my crippled thumb was in
such a condition, that in that hand--my right one, too--I was not sure I
could even hold the rat, much less crush the life out of it.

I bethought me of some means of protecting my fingers from its teeth.
If I had only been possessed of a pair