ll alone--and
starvation to creep on me by degrees, sapping life's energies one by
one. Already do I feel the dreadful sickening weakness growing on me.
Help, oh! help me Heav--no, no! Dare I call on Heaven to help me? Is
there no fiend of darkness who now will bid me a price for a human soul?
Is there not one who will do so--not one who will rescue me from the
horror that surrounds me, for Heaven will not? I dare not ask mercy
there."

The storm continued louder and louder. The wind, it is true, was nearly
hushed, but the roar and the rattle of the echo-awakening thunder fully
made up for its cessation, while, now and then, even there, in that
underground abode, some sudden reflection of the vivid lightning's light
would find its way, lending, for a fleeting moment, sufficient light to
Marchdale, wherewith he could see the gloomy place in which he was.

At times he wept, and at times he raved, while ever and anon he made
such frantic efforts to free himself from the chains that were around
him, that, had they not been strong, he must have succeeded; but, as it
was, he only made deep indentations into his flesh, and gave himself
much pain.

"Charles Holland!" he shouted; "oh! release me! Varney! Varney! why do
you not come to save me? I have toiled for you most unrequitedly--I have
not had my reward. Let it all consist in my release from this dreadful
bondage. Help! help! oh, help!"

There was no one to hear him. The storm continued, and now, suddenly, a
sudden and a sharper sound than any awakened by the thunder's roar came
upon his startled ear, and, in increased agony, he shouted,--

"What is that? oh! what is that? God of heaven, do my fears translate
that sound aright? Can it be, oh! can it be, that the ruins which have
stood for so many a year are now crumbling down before the storm of
to-night?"

The sound came again, and he felt the walls of the dungeon in which he
was shake. Now there could be no doubt but that the lightning had struck
some part of the building, and so endangered the safety of all that was
above ground. For a moment there came across his brain such a rush of
agony, that he neither spoke nor moved. Had that dreadful feeling
continued much longer, he must have lapsed into insanity; but that
amount of mercy--for mercy it would have been--was not shown to him. He
still felt all the accumulating horrors of his situation, and then, with
such shrieks as nothing but a full appreciation of such h