ea of ink
about it, spread and spread, lighter and lighter, until it invaded the
dim recesses where I stood. My hand became once more a tangible
possession, unreal and grim, yet all my own. The opposite wall loomed
up, my utmost frontier of the domain of certainty. Dimmer, darker,
more obscure, the door, a vast unexplored cavern gathered to itself the
hobgoblins of evil and gave them shelter. As still as the creeping on
of day we two men stood, glaring at each other and watched it come.

Exactly when I began to see him I could not say. Every impulse and
vital force of nature centered in my eyes, and they fastened themselves
upon that one irregular shadow in the opposing corner which slowly--oh!
with such agonizing slowness--assumed the outlines of a man. My
fascinated gaze wandered not nor wearied. When in the moist light of
the morning I clearly saw Broussard, haggard, pale and sunken-eyed,
watching me thirty feet away, it seemed that I had seen him all the
night.

No detail of his dress or manner but I observed. There was a scar
across his forehead, fresh and bleeding a bit. A contusion rather. He
had probably struck the door-facing as he rushed in. Yes, it bled. A
few drops had trickled down his nose; there hung one, quite dry, from
his brow. Precisely beneath this there were some dozen or so upon the
floor. All could have been covered by my hand. Like myself Broussard
had not moved throughout that awful night. God, how I pitied him.
With such a weight of treason on his soul. And yet, looking back, the
night was less awful than the coming day, far more merciful than the
hideous night which followed it. With the sun Broussard heartened up,
and first broke the silence.

"Who are you comrade, and what do you here?"

I was at a loss for reply. I had no faith in him, yet even a rotten
stick might serve to get me out.

"I am trapped like yourself, and feared you all the night. God in
Heaven what a long night it was."

Broussard had no words, his convulsive shudder expressed more than mine.

"Do you know how to get out of here?" I asked.

"Not I, except by the door, or the window," looking at that.

"I'll try the door," he continued, smiling the treacherous smile of the
tiger. I remembered so well the first day he showed his teeth aboard
ship. The man well knew I recognized him, he had heard me speak his
name, and I feared if he found the door open he would shut me up again,
and escape.

"