secure.

Then I paused a moment; and, I confess, the quick pant of fear seemed to
come grey from my lips. There were sounds about me--the deep breathing of
imprisoned men; and I envied the sleepers their hard-wrung repose.

At last, in one access of determination, I put out my hand, and sliding
back the bolt, hurriedly flung open the trap. An acrid whiff of dust
assailed my nostrils as I stepped back a pace and stood expectant of
anything--or nothing. What did I wish, or dread, or foresee? The complete
absurdity of my behaviour was revealed to me in a moment. I could shake
off the incubus here and now, and be a sane man again.

I giggled, with an actual ring of self-contempt in my voice, as I made a
forward movement to close the aperture. I advanced my face to it, and
inhaled the sluggish air that stole forth, and--God in heaven!

I had staggered back with that cry in my throat, when I felt fingers like
iron clamps close on my arm and hold it. The grip, more than the face
I turned to look upon in my surging terror, was forcibly human.

It was the warder Johnson who had seized me, and my heart bounded as I
met the cold fury of his eyes.

"Prying!" he said, in a hoarse, savage whisper. "So you will, will you?
And now let the devil help you!"

It was not this fellow I feared, though his white face was set like a
demon's; and in the thick of my terror I made a feeble attempt to assert
my authority.

"Let me go!" I muttered. "What! you dare?"

In his frenzy he shook my arm as a terrier shakes a rat, and, like a dog,
he held on, daring me to release myself.

For the moment an instinct half-murderous leapt in me. It sank and was
overwhelmed in a slough of some more secret emotion.

"Oh!" I whispered, collapsing, as it were, to the man's fury,
even pitifully deprecating it. "What is it? What's there? It drew
me--something unnameable".

He gave a snapping laugh like a cough. His rage waxed second by second.
There was a maniacal suggestiveness in it; and not much longer, it was
evident, could he have it under control. I saw it run and congest in his
eyes; and, on the instant of its accumulation, he tore at me with a
sudden wild strength, and drove me up against the very door of the secret
cell.

The action, the necessity of self-defence, restored me to some measure of
dignity and sanity.

"Let me go, you ruffian!" I cried, struggling to free myself from his
grasp.

It was useless. He held me madly. There was n