University of Virginia Library

CHAPTER XV.

Here, my friend, thou must permit me to pause. The
following incidents are of a kind to which the most ardent
invention has never conceived a parallel. Fortune, in her
most wayward mood, could scarcely be suspected of an influence
like this. The scene was pregnant with astonishment
and horror. I cannot, even now, recall it without reviving
the dismay and confusion which I then experienced.

Possibly, the period will arrive when I shall look back
without agony on the perils I have undergone. That period
is still distant. Solitude and sleep are now no more than
the signals to summon up a tribe of ugly phantoms. Famine,
and blindness, and death, and savage enemies, never fail to
be conjured up by the silence and darkness of the night. I
cannot dissipate them by any efforts of reason. My cowardice
requires the perpetual consolation of light. My heart
droops when I mark the decline of the sun, and I never
sleep but with a candle burning at my pillow. If, by any
chance, I should awake and find myself immersed in darkness,

I know not what act of desperation I might be suddenly
impelled to commit.

I have delayed this narrative longer than my duty to my
friend enjoined. Now that I am able to hold a pen, I will
hasten to terminate that uncertainty with regard to my fate,
in which my silence has involved thee. I will recall that
series of unheard of and disastrous vicissitudes which has
constituted the latest portion of my life.

I am not certain, however, that I shall relate them in an
intelligible manner. One image runs into another, sensations
succeed in so rapid a train, that I fear I shall be unable to
distribute and express them with sufficient perspicuity. As
I look back, my heart is sore and aches within my bosom.
I am conscious to a kind of complex sentiment of distress
and forlornness that cannot be perfectly portrayed by words;
but I must do as well as I can. In the utmost vigor of my
faculties, no eloquence that I possess would do justice to the
tale. Now in my languishing and feeble state, I shall furnish
thee with little more than a glimpse of the truth. With
these glimpses, transient and faint as they are, thou must be
satisfied.

I have said that I slept. My memory assures me of this;
it informs me of the previous circumstances of my laying aside
my clothes, of placing the light upon a chair within reach of
my pillow, of throwing myself upon the bed, and of gazing
on the rays of the moon reflected on the wall, and almost
obscured by those of the candle. I remember my occasional
relapses into fits of incoherent fancies, the harbingers
of sleep. I remember, as it were, the instant when my
thoughts ceased to flow, and my senses were arrested by the
leaden wand of forgetfulness.

My return to sensation and to consciousness took place
in no such tranquil scene. I emerged from oblivion by degrees
so slow and so faint, that their succession cannot be
marked. When enabled at length to attend to the information
which my senses afforded, I was conscious, for a time,
of nothing but existence. It was unaccompanied with lassitude
or pain, but I felt disinclined to stretch my limbs, or
raise my eyelids. My thoughts were wildering and mazy,

and though consciousness were present, it was disconnected
with the locomotive or voluntary power.

From this state a transition was speedily effected. I perceived
that my posture was supine, and that I lay upon my
back. I attempted to open my eyes. The weight that
oppressed them was too great for a slight exertion to remove.
The exertion which I made cost me a pang more
acute than any which I ever experienced. My eyes, however,
were opened; but the darkness that environed me
was as intense as before.

I attempted to rise, but my limbs were cold, and my
joints had almost lost their flexibility. My efforts were repeated,
and at length I attained a sitting posture. I was
now sensible of pain in my shoulders and back. I was
universally in that state to which the frame is reduced by
blows of a club, mercilessly and endlessly repeated; my
temples throbbed and my face was covered with clammy and
cold drops, but that which threw me into deepest consternation
was, my inability to see. I turned my head to different
quarters, I stretched my eyelids, and exerted every visual
energy, but in vain. I was wrapt in the murkiest and most
impenetrable gloom.

The first effort of reflection was to suggest the belief
that I was blind; that disease is known to assail us in a moment
and without previous warning. This surely was the
misfortune that had now befallen me. Some ray, however,
fleeting and uncertain, could not fail to be discerned, if the
power of vision were not utterly extinguished. In what
circumstances could I possibly be placed, from which every
particle of light should, by other means, be excluded.

This led my thoughts into a new train. I endeavored
to recall the past, but the past was too much in contradiction
to the present, and my intellect was too much shattered
by external violence, to allow me accurately to review it.

Since my sight availed nothing to the knowledge of my
condition, I betook myself to other instruments. The element
which I breathed was stagnant and cold. The spot
where I lay was rugged and hard. I was neither naked nor
clothed, a shirt and trowsers composed my dress, and the
shoes and stockings, which always accompanied these,

were now wanting. What could I infer from this scanty
garb, this chilling atmosphere, this stony bed?

I had awakened as from sleep. What was my condition
when I fell asleep? Surely it was different from the present.
Then I inhabited a lightsome chamber, and was
stretched upon a down bed. Now I was supine upon a
rugged surface and immersed in palpable obscurity. Then
I was in perfect health; now my frame was covered with
bruises and every joint was racked with pain. What dungeon
or den had received me, and by whose command was
I transported hither?

After various efforts I stood upon my feet. At first I
tottered and staggered. I stretched out my hands on all
sides but met only with vacuity. I advanced forward. At
the third step my foot moved something which lay upon the
ground, I stooped and took it up, and found, on examination,
that it was an Indian tomahawk. This incident afforded
me no hint from which I might conjecture my state.

Proceeding irresolutely and slowly forward, my hands at
length touched a wall. This, like the flooring, was of stone,
and was rugged and impenetrable. I followed this wall.
An advancing angle occurred at a short distance, which was
followed by similar angles. I continued to explore this
clue, till the suspicion occurred that I was merely going
round the walls of a vast and irregular apartment.

The utter darkness disabled me from comparing directions
and distances. This discovery, therefore, was not made on
a sudden, and was still entangled with some doubt. My
blood recovered some warmth, and my muscles some elasticity,
but in proportion as my sensibility returned my pains
augmented. Overpowered by my fears and my agonies, I
desisted from my fruitless search, and sat down, supporting
my back against the wall.

My excruciating sensations for a time occupied my attention.
These, in combination with other causes, gradually
produced a species of delirium. I existed as it were
in a wakeful dream. With nothing to correct my erroneous
perceptions, the images of the past occurred in capricious
combinations, and vivid hues. Methought I was the victim
of some tyrant who had thrust me into a dungeon of his
fortress, and left me no power to determine whether he

intended I should perish with famine, or linger out a long
life in hopeless imprisonment. Whether the day was shut
out by insuperable walls, or the darkness that surrounded
me, was owing to the night and to the smallness of those
crannies through which daylight was to be admitted, I conjectured
in vain.

Sometimes I imagined myself buried alive. Methought
I had fallen into seeming death and my friends had consigned
me to the tomb, from which a resurrection was impossible.
That in such a case, my limbs would have been
confined to a coffin, and my coffin to a grave, and that I
should instantly have been suffocated, did not occur to destroy
my supposition. Neither did this supposition overwhelm
me with terror or prompt my efforts at deliverance.
My state was full of tumult and confusion, and my attention
was incessantly divided between my painful sensations and
my feverish dreams.

There is no standard by which time can be measured,
but the succession of our thoughts, and the changes that
take place in the external world. From the latter I was
totally excluded. The former made the lapse of some
hours appear like the tediousness of weeks and months.
At length, a new sensation recalled my rambling meditations,
and gave substance to my fears. I now felt the
cravings of hunger, and perceived that unless my deliverance
were speedily effected, I must suffer a tedious and lingering
death.

I once more tasked my understanding and my senses, to
discover the nature of my present situation and the means
of escape. I listened to catch some sound. I heard an
unequal and varying echo, sometimes near and sometimes
distant, sometimes dying away and sometimes swelling into
loudness. It was unlike any thing I had before heard, but
it was evident that it arose from wind sweeping through spacious
halls and winding passages. These tokens were incompatible
with the result of the examination I had made.
If my hands were true I was immured between walls,
through which there was no avenue.

I now exerted my voice, and cried as loud as my wasted
strength would admit. Its echoes were sent back to me in
broken and confused sounds and from above. This effort

was casual, but some part of that uncertainty in which I
was involved, was instantly dispelled by it. In passing
through the cavern on the former day, I have mentioned
the verge of the pit at which I arrived. To acquaint me
as far as was possible, with the dimensions of the place, I
had hallooed with all my force, knowing that sound is reflected
according to the distance and relative positions of
the substances from which it is repelled.

The effect produced by my voice on this occasion resembled,
with remarkable exactness, the effect which was
then produced. Was I then shut up in the same cavern?
Had I reached the brink of the same precipice and been
thrown headlong into that vacuity? Whence else could
arise the bruises which I had received, but from my fall?
Yet all remembrance of my journey hither was lost. I had
determined to explore this cave on the ensuing day, but my
memory informed me not that this intention had been carried
into effect. Still it was only possible to conclude that
I had come hither on my intended expedition, and had been
thrown by another, or had, by some ill chance, fallen into
the pit.

This opinion was conformable to what I had already observed.
The pavement and walls were rugged like those
of the footing and sides of the cave through which I had
formerly passed.

But if this were true, what was the abhorred catastrophe
to which I was now reserved? The sides of this pit were
inaccessible; human footsteps would never wander into
these recesses. My friends were unapprised of my forlorn
state. Here I should continue till wasted by famine. In
this grave should I linger out a few days, in unspeakable
agonies, and then perish forever.

The inroads of hunger were already experienced, and this
knowledge of the desperateness of my calamity, urged me
to phrenzy. I had none but capricious and unseen fate to
condemn. The author of my distress and the means he
had taken to decoy me hither, were incomprehensible.
Surely my senses were fettered or depraved by some spell.
I was still asleep, and this was merely a tormenting vision,
or madness had seized me, and the darkness that environed

and the hunger that afflicted me, existed only in my own
distempered imagination.

The consolation of these doubts could not last long.
Every hour added to the proof that my perceptions were
real. My hunger speedily became ferocious. I tore the
linen of my shirt between my teeth and swallowed the fragments.
I felt a strong propensity to bite the flesh from my arm.
My heart overflowed with cruelty, and I pondered on the
delight I should experience in rending some living animal
to pieces, and drinking its blood and grinding its quivering
fibres between my teeth.

This agony had already passed beyond the limits of endurance.
I saw that time, instead of bringing respite or relief,
would only aggravate my wants, and that my only remaining
hope was to die before I should be assaulted by the last
extremes of famine. I now recollected that a tomahawk
was at hand, and rejoiced in the possession of an instrument
by which I could so effectually terminate my sufferings.

I took it in my hand, moved its edge over my fingers, and
reflected on the force that was required to make it reach
my heart. I investigated the spot where it should enter,
and strove to fortify myself with resolution to repeat the
stroke a second or third time, if the first should prove insufficient.
I was sensible that I might fail to inflict a mortal
wound, but delighted to consider that the blood which would
be made to flow, would finally release me, and that meanwhile
my pains would be alleviated by swallowing this blood.

You will not wonder that I felt some reluctance to employ
so fatal though indispensable a remedy. I once more ruminated
on the possibility of rescuing myself by other means. I
now reflected that the upper termination of the wall could
not be at an immeasurable distance from the pavement. I
had fallen from a height, but if that height had been considerable,
instead of being merely bruised, should I not have
been dashed into pieces?

Gleams of hope burst anew upon my soul. Was it not
possible, I asked, to reach the top of this pit. The sides
were rugged and uneven. Would not their projectures and
abruptnesses serve me as steps by which I might ascend in
safety. This expedient was to be tried without delay.

Shortly my strength would fail and my doom would be irrevocably
sealed.

I will not enumerate my laborious efforts, my alternations
of despondency and confidence, the eager and unwearied
scrutiny with which I examined the surface, the attempts
which I made, and the failures which, for a time, succeeded
each other. A hundred times, when I had ascended some
feet from the bottom, I was compelled to relinquish my undertaking
by the untenable smoothness of the spaces which
remained to be gone over. A hundred times I threw myself,
exhausted by fatigue and my pains, on the ground.
The consciousness was gradually restored that till I had
attempted every part of the wall, it was absurd to despair,
and I again drew my tottering limbs and aching joints to
that part of the wall which had not been surveyed.

At length, as I stretched my hand upward, I found somewhat
that seemed like a recession in the wall. It was possible
that this was the top of the cavity, and this might be the
avenue to liberty. My heart leaped with joy, and I proceeded
to climb the wall. No undertaking could be conceived
more arduous than this. The space between this
verge and the floor was nearly smooth. The verge was
higher from the bottom than my head. The only means
of ascending that were offered me were by my hands, with
which I could draw myself upward so as, at length, to
maintain my hold with my feet.

My efforts were indefatigable, and at length I placed myself
on the verge, when this was accomplished, my strength
was nearly gone. Had I not found space enough beyond
this brink to stretch myself at length, I should unavoidably
have fallen backward into the pit, and all my pains had
served no other end than to deepen my despair and hasten
my destruction.

What impediments and perils remained to be encountered
I could not judge. I was now inclined to forbode the
worst. The interval of repose which was necessary to be
taken, in order to recruit my strength, would accelerate the
ravages of famine, and leave me without the power to
proceed.

In this state, I once more consoled myself that an instrument
of death was at hand. I had drawn up with me the

tomahawk, being sensible that should this impediment be
overcome others might remain that would prove insuperable.
Before I employed it, however, I cast my eyes wildly and
languidly around. The darkness was no less intense than in
the pit below, and yet two objects were distinctly seen.

They resembled a fixed and obscure flame. They were
motionless. Though lustrous themselves they created no
illumination around them. This circumstance, added to
others, which reminded me of similar objects, noted on
former occasions, immediately explained the nature of what
I beheld. These were the eyes of a panther.

Thus had I struggled to obtain a post where a savage was
lurking, and waited only till my efforts should place me
within reach of his fangs. The first impulse was to arm
myself against this enemy. The desperateness of my condition
was, for a moment, forgotten. The weapon which
was so lately lifted against my own bosom, was now raised
to defend my life against the assault of another.

There was no time for deliberation and delay. In a moment
he might spring from his station and tear me to pieces.
My utmost speed might not enable me to reach him where
he sat, but merely to encounter his assault. I did not reflect
how far my strength was adequate to save me. All the
force that remained was mustered up and exerted in a
throw.

No one knows the powers that are latent in his constitution.
Called forth by imminent dangers, our efforts frequently
exceed our most sanguine belief. Though tottering
on the verge of dissolution, and apparently unable to crawl
from this spot, a force was exerted in this throw, probably
greater than I had ever before exerted. It was resistless
and unerring. I aimed at the middle space between those
glowing orbs. It penetrated the skull and the animal fell,
struggling and shrieking, on the ground.

My ears quickly informed me when his pangs were at an
end. His cries and his convulsions lasted for a moment and
then ceased. The effect of his voice, in these subterranean
abodes, was unspeakably rueful.

The abruptness of this incident, and the preternatural exertion
of my strength, left me in a state of languor and sinking,
from which slowly and with difficulty I recovered. The

first suggestion that occurred was to feed upon the carcass
of this animal. My hunger had arrived at that pitch where
all fastidiousness and scruples are at an end. I crept to
the spot—I will not shock you by relating the extremes to
which dire necessity had driven me. I review this scene
with loathing and horror. Now that it is past I look back
upon it as on some hideous dream. The whole appears to
be some freak of insanity. No alternative was offered, and
hunger was capable of being appeased, even by a banquet
so detestable.

If this appetite has sometimes subdued the sentiments of
nature, and compelled the mother to feed upon the flesh of
her offspring, it will not excite amazement that I did not turn
from the yet warm blood and reeking fibres of a brute.

One evil was now removed, only to give place to another.
The first sensations of fulness had scarcely been felt when
my stomach was seized by pangs, whose acuteness exceeded
all that I ever before experienced. I bitterly lamented my
inordinate avidity. The excruciations of famine were better
than the agonies which this abhorred meal had produced.

Death was now impending with no less proximity and certainty,
though in a different form. Death was a sweet relief
for my present miseries, and I vehemently longed for its
arrival. I stretched myself on the ground. I threw myself
into every posture that promised some alleviation of this evil.
I rolled along the pavement of the cavern, wholly inattentive
to the dangers that environed me. That I did not fall into
the pit, whence I had just emerged, must be ascribed to
some miraculous chance.

How long my miseries endured, it is not possible to tell.
I cannot even form a plausible conjecture. Judging by the
lingering train of my sensations, I should conjecture that
some days elapsed in this deplorable condition, but nature
could not have so long sustained a conflict like this.

Gradually my pains subsided and I fell into a deep sleep.
I was visited by dreams of a thousand hues. They led me
to flowing streams and plenteous banquets, which, though
placed within my view, some power forbade me to approach.
From this sleep I recovered to the fruition of solitude and
darkness, but my frame was in a state less feeble than before.
That which I had eaten had produced temporary distress,

but on the whole had been of use. If this food had
not been provided for me I should scarcely have avoided
death. I had reason therefore to congratulate myself on the
danger that had lately occurred.

I had acted without foresight, and yet no wisdom could
have prescribed more salutary measures. The panther
was slain, not from a view to the relief of my hunger, but
from the self-preserving and involuntary impulse. Had I
foreknown the pangs to which my ravenous and bloody
meal would give birth, I should have carefully abstained, and
yet these pangs were a useful effort of nature to subdue
and convert to nourishment the matter I had swallowed.

I was now assailed by the torments of thirst. My invention
and my courage were anew bent to obviate this pressing
evil. I reflected that there was some recess from this cavern,
even from the spot where I now stood. Before, I was
doubtful whether in this direction from this pit any avenue
could be found, but since the panther had come hither
there was reason to suppose the existence of some such
avenue.

I now likewise attended to a sound, which, from its invariable
tenor, denoted somewhat different from the whistling
of a gale. It seemed like the murmur of a running stream.
I now prepared to go forward, and endeavored to move
along in that direction in which this sound apparently came.

On either side and above my head, there was nothing but
vacuity. My steps were to be guided by the pavement,
which, though unequal and rugged, appeared, on the whole,
to ascend. My safety required that I should employ both
hands and feet in exploring my way.

I went on thus for a considerable period. The murmur,
instead of becoming more distinct, gradually died away.
My progress was arrested by fatigue, and I began once
more to despond. My exertions produced a perspiration,
which, while it augmented my thirst, happily supplied me
with imperfect means of appeasing it.

This expedient would, perhaps, have been accidentally
suggested, but my ingenuity was assisted by remembering
the history of certain English prisoners in Bengal, whom
their merciless enemy imprisoned in a small room, and
some of whom preserved themselves alive merely by swallowing

the moisture that flowed from their bodies. This
experiment I now performed with no less success.

This was slender and transitory consolation. I knew that,
wandering at random, I might never reach the outlet of this
cavern, or might be disabled, by hunger and fatigue, from
going farther than the outlet. The cravings which had
lately been satiated, would speedily return, and my negligence
had cut me off from the resource which had recently
been furnished. I thought not till now that a second meal
might be indispensable.

To return upon my footsteps to the spot where the dead
animal lay, was a heartless project. I might thus be placing
myself at a hopeless distance from liberty. Besides, my
track could not be retraced. I had frequently deviated
from a straight direction for the sake of avoiding impediments.
All of which I was sensible was, that I was travelling
up an irregular acclivity. I hoped sometime to reach
the summit, but had no reason for adhering to one line of
ascent in preference to another.

To remain where I was, was manifestly absurd. Whether
I mounted or descended, a change of place was most likely
to benefit me. I resolved to vary my direction, and, instead
of ascending, keep along the side of what I accounted a
hill. I had gone some hundred feet when the murmur,
before described, once more saluted my ear.

This sound, being imagined to proceed from a running
stream, could not but light up joy in the heart of one nearly
perishing with thirst. I proceeded with new courage. The
sound approached no nearer, nor became more distinct, but
as long as it died not away, I was satisfied to listen and to
hope.

I was eagerly observant if any the least glimmering of
light, should visit this recess. At length, on the right hand,
a gleam, infinitely faint, caught my attention. It was wavering
and unequal. I directed my steps towards it. It
became more vivid and permanent. It was of that kind,
however, which proceeded from a fire, kindled with dry
sticks, and not from the sun. I now heard the crackling of
flames.

This sound made me pause, or at least to proceed with
circumspection. At length the scene opened, and I found

myself at the entrance of a cave. I quickly reached a
station when I saw a fire burning. At first no other object
was noted, but it was easy to infer that the fire was kindled
by men, and that they who kindled it could be at no great
distance.