emies are out after me; but,
posted here, I mock their strictest search! If they would track me to
my hiding-place, they must penetrate the walls of Rome! If they would
hunt me down in my lair, they must assail me to-night in the camp of
the Goths! Fools! let them look to themselves! I seal the doom of
their city, with the last brick that I tear from their defenceless
walls!'

He laughed to himself as he thrust his bar boldly into the crevice
before him. In some places the bricks yielded easily to his efforts;
in others, their resistance was only to be overcome by the exertion of
his utmost strength. Resolutely and unceasingly he continued his
labours; now wounding his hands against the jagged surfaces presented
by the widening fissure; now involuntarily dropping his instrument from
ungovernable exhaustion; but, still working bravely on, in defiance of
every hindrance that opposed him, until he gained the interior of the
new rift.

As he drew his lantern after him into the cavity that he had made, he
perceived that, unless it was heightened immediately over him, he could
proceed no further, even in a creeping position. Irritated at this
unexpected necessity for more violent exertion, desperate in his
determination to get through the wall at all hazards on that very
night, he recklessly struck his bar upwards with all his strength,
instead of gradually and softly loosening the material of the surface
that opposed him, as he had done before.

A few moments of this labour had scarcely elapsed, when a considerable
portion of the brick-work, consolidated into one firm mass, fell with
lightning suddenness from above. It hurled him under it, prostrate on
the foundation arch which had been his support; crushed and dislocated
his right shoulder; and shivered his lantern into fragments. A groan
of irrepressible anguish burst from his lips. He was left in
impenetrable darkness.

The mass of brick-work, after it had struck him, rolled a little to one
side. By a desperate exertion he extricated himself from under
it--only to swoon from the fresh anguish caused to him by the effort.

For a short time he lay insensible in his cold dark solitude. Then,
reviving after this first shock, he began to experience in all their
severity, the fierce spasms, the dull gnawings, the throbbing torments,
that were the miserable consequences of the injury he received. His
arm lay motionless by his side--he had neither strength nor r