indicative of hollowness.

This perplexing mystery had for a time withdrawn his thoughts from the
windows; but now, directing his eyes again towards them, he saw that
the fifth had disappeared in the same manner as the preceding two,
without the least distinguishable alteration of external appearances.
The remaining four looked as the seven had originally looked; that is,
occupying, at irregular distances, the top of the wall on that side
of the dungeon. The tall folding-door, too, still seemed to stand
beneath, in the centre of these four, as it had at first stood in
the centre of the seven. But he could no longer doubt, what, on the
preceding day, he fancied might be the effect of visual deception.
The dungeon _was_ smaller. The roof had lowered--and the opposite ends
had contracted the intermediate distance by a space equal, he thought,
to that over which the three windows had extended. He was bewildered
in vain imaginings to account for these things. Some frightful
purpose--some devilish torture of mind or body--some unheard-of device
for producing exquisite misery, lurked, he was sure, in what had taken
place.

Oppressed with this belief, and distracted more by the dreadful
uncertainty of whatever fate impended, than he could be dismayed, he
thought, by the knowledge of the worst, he sat ruminating, hour after
hour, yielding his fears in succession to every haggard fancy. At last
a horrible suspicion flashed suddenly across his mind, and he started
up with a frantic air. "Yes!" he exclaimed, looking wildly round his
dungeon, and shuddering as he spoke--"Yes! it must be so! I see it!--I
feel the maddening truth like scorching flames upon my brain! Eternal
God!--support me! it must be so!--Yes, yes, _that_ is to be my fate!
Yon roof will descend!--these walls will hem me round--and slowly,
slowly, crush me in their iron arms! Lord God! look down upon me, and
in mercy strike me with instant death! Oh, fiend--oh, devil--is this
your revenge?"

He dashed himself upon the ground in agony;--tears burst from him, and
the sweat stood in large drops upon his face--he sobbed aloud--he tore
his hair--he rolled about like one suffering intolerable anguish of
body, and would have bitten the iron floor beneath him; he breathed
fearful curses upon Tolfi, and the next moment passionate prayers to
heaven for immediate death. Then the violence of his grief became
exhausted, and he lay still, weeping as a child would weep. The
twi