these reasons, I found the way long enough to give me time to recall a
singular air of reluctance or compulsion with which he had pointed out
the path.

When I came down low enough upon the zig-zag descent, to see him again, I
saw that he was standing between the rails on the way by which the train
had lately passed, in an attitude as if he were waiting for me to appear.
He had his left hand at his chin, and that left elbow rested on his right
hand crossed over his breast. His attitude was one of such expectation
and watchfulness, that I stopped a moment, wondering at it.

I resumed my downward way, and, stepping out upon the level of the
railroad and drawing nearer to him, saw that he was a dark sallow man,
with a dark beard and rather heavy eyebrows. His post was in as solitary
and dismal a place as ever I saw. On either side, a dripping-wet wall of
jagged stone, excluding all view but a strip of sky; the perspective one
way, only a crooked prolongation of this great dungeon; the shorter
perspective in the other direction, terminating in a gloomy red light,
and the gloomier entrance to a black tunnel, in whose massive
architecture there was a barbarous, depressing, and forbidding air. So
little sunlight ever found its way to this spot, that it had an earthy
deadly smell; and so much cold wind rushed through it, that it struck
chill to me, as if I had left the natural world.

Before he stirred, I was near enough to him to have touched him. Not
even then removing his eyes from mine, he stepped back one step, and
lifted his hand.

This was a lonesome post to occupy (I said), and it had riveted my
attention when I looked down from up yonder. A visitor was a rarity, I
should suppose; not an unwelcome rarity, I hoped? In me, he merely saw a
man who had been shut up within narrow limits all his life, and who,
being at last set free, had a newly-awakened interest in these great
works. To such purpose I spoke to him; but I am far from sure of the
terms I used, for, besides that I am not happy in opening any
conversation, there was something in the man that daunted me.

He directed a most curious look towards the red light near the tunnel's
mouth, and looked all about it, as if something were missing from it, and
then looked at me.

That light was part of his charge? Was it not?

He answered in a low voice: "Don't you know it is?"

The monstrous thought came into my mind as I perused the fixed eyes and
the sa