n my part could ever bring
release. For a moment, as I realized all this, the cold perspiration
stood in drops upon my forehead, and I noted the trembling of the hand
holding the candlestick. There was a horror to the thought hard to
explain--perhaps I would be left immured until my small stock of candles
was exhausted, and this dismal hole plunged in cave-like darkness; only
two persons knew of my predicament, or were capable of releasing me. What
if something should occur making it impossible for either to act? What if
this was a trick, and I had been actually buried alive? I grew morbid,
suspicious, almost convinced that I was the victim of conspiracy. Then,
somehow, a flash of courage returned, and I caught at these fears, as
memory of those honest blue eyes came again. I would not permit such a
thought to dominate me; it was not possible--the very conception was
insanity.

Yet I went over the rough surface again before retracing my steps down to
the room below. All this must have taken fully an hour of time, and the
strain of disappointment left me tired, as though I had done a day's
work. I sank back into the chair, watching the candle burn away, trying
in vain to think out some course of action if those above failed me. I
had no reason to believe they would, and yet the long time I had been
there--apparently much longer than it really was--the certainty that my
means of light were fast being exhausted, the awful silence and
loneliness, left upon me a horror against which I struggled in vain. I
can hardly conceive that I slept, and yet I certainly lost consciousness,
for, when I aroused myself, I was in pitch darkness.

I felt dazed, bewildered, but as my hand felt the edge of the table I
comprehended where I was, and what had occurred. Groping about I found
flint and steel, and that last candle, which I forced into the
candlestick. The tiny yellow flame was like a message from the gods. How
I watched it, every nerve tingling, as it burned lower and lower. Would
it last until help came, or was I destined to remain pinned up in the
darkness of this ghastly grave? Why, I must have been there for
hours--hours. The burning out of the candles proved that. Surely I could
doubt no longer this was a trick, a cowardly, cruel trick! If help had
been coming it would have reached me before this. The day must have
passed, and much of the night. Grant and his party would have marched
away long before this on the road to Philad