urched rapidly ahead for a little
space and then moved with halting steps. His limbs grew weak, his
breath came in gasps, and the pain in his side was cutting him like a
knife.

But he thought he was going very rapidly. He could see so nicely too.
The flames, fanned by the motion, curled up and licked his hand and
wrist, but he scarcely knew it.

Then his foot struck some obstacle in the way and he fell. For a
moment he lay there panting and helpless, while the burning cloth,
thrown from him in his fall, lighted up the narrow space around him
till it grew as clear as day. But all this splendid glow should not be
wasted; it would never do; he must make it light him on his journey
till the last ray was gone.

He staggered to his feet again and ran on into the ever growing
darkness. Behind him the flames flared, flickered, and died slowly
out, and when the last vestige of light was wholly gone he sank,
utterly exhausted, to the floor of the mine, and thick darkness
settled on him like a pall.

A long time he lay there wondering vaguely at his strange misfortunes.
The fever in his blood was running high, and, instead of harboring
sober thought, his mind was filled with fleeting fancies.

It was very still here, so still that he thought he heard the
throbbing in his head. He wondered if it could be heard by others who
might thus find where he lay.

Then fear came on him, fear like an icy hand clutching at his breast,
fear that would not let him rest, but that brought him to his feet
again and urged him onward.

To die, that was nothing; he could die if need be; but to be shut up
here alone, with strange and unseen things hovering about him in the
blackness, that was quite beyond endurance. He was striving to get
away from them. He had not much thought, now, which way he went, he
cared little for direction, he wished only to keep in motion.

He had to stop at times to get breath and to rest his limbs, they
ached so. But, whenever he stood still or sat down to rest, the
darkness seemed to close in upon him and around him so tightly as to
give him pain. He would not have cared so much for that, though, if it
had not been filled with strange creatures who crept close to him to
hear the throbbing in his head. He could not bear that; it compelled
him to move on.

He went a long way like this, with his hands before him, stumbling,
falling, rising again, stopping for a moment's rest, moaning as he
walked, crying softly