seen from these windows, suspicion
would be excited and I might be disagreeably interrupted.'

Reaching out his arm, he caught hold of the door of the safe, and pulled
it violently towards him so that the light of his candle might not
betray him. The immense mass of iron swung heavingly upon its hinges,
and closed with a sharp _click_; the spring held it fast, and on the
inside of the door there was no means of turning back that spring. Like
lightning the awful conviction flashed through the burglar's mind that
he was _entombed alive_!

Vain, vain were his efforts to burst forth from his iron coffin; as well
might he attempt to move the solid rock! He shrieked aloud for
assistance--but no sound could penetrate through those iron walls! He
called upon God to pity him in that moment of his awful distress--but
that God, whom he had so often blasphemed, now interposed not His power
to succor the vile wretch, thus so signally punished.

No friendly crevice admitted one mouthful of air into the safe, and
Archer soon began to breathe with difficulty; he became sensible that he
must die a terrible death by suffocation. Oh, how he longed for someone
to arrive and release him from his dreadful situation, even though the
remainder of his days were passed within the gloomy walls of a prison!
How he cursed the money, to obtain which he had entered that safe,
wherein he was now imprisoned as securely as if buried far down in the
bowels of the earth! With the howl of a demon he dashed the banknotes
and glittering gold beneath his feet, and trampled on them. Then,
sinking down upon the floor of the safe, he abandoned himself to
despair.

Already had the air of that small, confined place become fetid and
noisome; and the burglar began to pant with agony, while the hot blood
swelled his veins almost to bursting. A hundred thousand dollars lay
within his grasp--he would have given it all for one breath of fresh
air, or one draught of cold water.

As the agonies of his body increased, the horrors of his guilty
conscience tortured his soul. The remembrance of the many crimes he had
committed arose before him; the spirit of his murdered wife hovered over
him, ghastly, pale and bloody. Then he recollected that an innocent man
was to be hung on the morrow, for that dreadful deed which _he_ had
perpetrated; and the thought added to the mental tortures which he was
enduring.

A thought struck the dying wretch; it was perhaps in his power