ions of wine, with which I
supplied him. His fate was now evidently brought one degree nearer to
him. He kept his gaze intently and unceasingly turned to the window of
the dungeon. His muttered replies were incoherent or unintelligible,
and his sunk and weakened eye strained painfully on the grated window,
as if he momentarily expected to see the first streak of the dawn of
that morning, which to him was to be night. His nervous agitation
gradually became horrible, and his motions stronger. He seemed not to
have resolution enough to rise from his seat and go to the window, and
yet to have an overpowering wish or impulse to do so. The lowest sound
startled him--but with this terrible irritation, his muscular power,
before debilitated, seemed to revive, and his action, which was
drooping and languid, became quick and angular. I began to be seized
with an undefined sense of fear and alarm. In vain I combated it; it
grew upon me; and I had almost risen from my seat to try to make
myself heard, and obtain, if possible, assistance. The loneliness of
the gaol, however, rendered this, even if attempted, almost
desperate--the sense of duty, the dread of ridicule, came across me,
and chained me to my seat by the miserable criminal, whose state was
becoming every minute more dreadful and extraordinary.

* * * * *

Let us not scorn or distrust our obscurest misgivings, for we are
strangely constituted; and though the evidence for such conclusions
often be in a manner unknown to ourselves, they are not the less
veritable and just. Exhausted by the wearing excitement and anxiety of
my situation, I had for a moment sunk into that confused absence of
mind with which those who have been in similar circumstances cannot be
unacquainted, when my miserable companion, with a convulsive shudder,
grasped my arm suddenly. I was for a few seconds unaware of the cause
of this emotion and movement, when a low indistinct sound caught my
ear. It was the rumbling of a cart, mingled with two or three
suppressed voices; and the cart appeared to be leaving the gate of the
dismal building in which we were. It rolled slowly and heavily as if
cumbrously laden, under the paved gateway; and after a few minutes,
all was silent. The agonised wretch understood its import better than
I did. A gust of the wildest despair came suddenly over him. He
clutched with his hands whatever met his grasp. His knees worked. His
frame became a