han four
feet wide, and he unlocked a cell from which a revolting odor came.
There was no light except what strained through a loophole under the
ceiling. He turned the key upon me, and I held my nose. Oh, for a deep
draught of the wilderness!

There seemed to be an iron bed at one side, with a heap of rags on top.
I resolved to stand up all night before trusting myself to that couch.
The cell was soon explored. Two strides in each direction measured it.
The stone walls were marked or cut with names I could dimly see.

I braced my back against the door and watched the loophole where a gray
hint of daylight told that the sun must be still shining. This faded to
a blotch in the thick stone, and became obliterated.

Tired by the day's march, and with a taste of clean outdoor air still in
my lungs, I chose one of the two corners not occupied by the ill odored
bed, sat down, and fell asleep, dropping my cares. A grating of the lock
disturbed me. The jailer pushed a jug of water into the room, and
replaced his bolts.

Afterwards I do not remember anything except that the stone was not
warm, and my stomach craved, until a groan in my ear stabbed sleep. I
sat up awake in every nerve. There was nobody in the cell with me.
Perhaps the groan had come from a neighboring prisoner.

Then a faint stir of covering could be heard upon the bed.

I rose and pressed as far as I could into my corner. No beast of the
wilderness ever had such terror for me as the unknown thing that had
been my cell-mate half a night without my knowledge.

Was a vampire--a demon--a witch--a ghost locked in there with me?

It moaned again, so faintly, that compassion instantly got the better of
superstition.

"Who is there?" I demanded; as if the knowledge of a name would cure
terror of the suffering thing naming itself.

I got no answer, and taking my resolution in hand, moved toward the bed,
determined to know what housed with me. The jug of water stood in the
way, and I lifted it with instinctive answer to the groan.

The creature heard the splash, and I knew by its mutter what it wanted.
Groping darkly, to poise the jug for an unseen mouth, I realized that
something helpless to the verge of extinction lay on the bed, and I
would have to find the mouth myself or risk drowning it. I held the
water on the bed-rail with my right hand, groped with the other, and
found a clammy, death-cold forehead, a nose and cavernous cheeks, an
open and fever roug