d strove not to
think, but in vain. Her mind, growing hourly more and more intensely
excited, at length almost maddened, and she grew conscious herself--the
worst of all kinds of consciousness--that her reason was no longer
secure in its sovereignty. It was with a strong effort of the still-firm
will that she strove to meditate the best mode of rescuing the victim
from the death suspended above him; and she succeeded, while
deliberating on this object, in quieting the more subtle workings of her
imagination.

Many were the thoughts which came into her brain in this examination. At
one time she thought it not impossible to convey a letter, in which her
testimony should be carefully set down; but the difficulty of procuring
a messenger, and the doubt that such a statement would prove of any
avail, decided her to seek for other means. An ordinary mind, and a
moderate degree of interest in the fate of the individual, would have
contented itself with some such step; but such a mind and such
affections were not those of the high-souled and spirited Lucy. She
dreaded not personal danger; and to rescue the youth, whom she so much
idolized, from the doom that threatened him, she would have willingly
dared to encounter that doom itself, in its darkest forms. She
determined, therefore, to rely chiefly upon herself in all efforts which
she should make for the purpose in view; and her object, therefore, was
to effect a return to the village in time to appear at the trial.

Yet how should this be done? She felt herself to be a captive; she knew
the restraints upon her--and did not doubt that all her motions were
sedulously observed. How then should she proceed? An agent was
necessary; and, while deliberating with herself upon the difficulty thus
assailing her at the outset, her ears were drawn to the distinct
utterance of sounds, as of persons engaged in conversation, from the
adjoining section of the rock.

One of the voices appeared familiar, and at length she distinctly made
out her own name in various parts of the dialogue. She soon
distinguished the nasal tones of the pedler, whose prison adjoined her
own, separated only by a huge wall of earth and rock, the rude and
jagged sides of which had been made complete, where naturally imperfect,
for the purposes of a wall, by the free use of clay, which, plastered in
huge masses into the crevices and every fissure, was no inconsiderable
apology for the more perfect structures of civ