val
of time had since elapsed. Yet not for a moment did I suppose myself
actually dead. Such a supposition, notwithstanding what we read in
fiction, is altogether inconsistent with real existence;--but where and
in what state was I? The condemned to death, I knew, perished usually at
the autos-da-fe, and one of these had been held on the very night of the
day of my trial. Had I been remanded to my dungeon, to await the next
sacrifice, which would not take place for many months? This I at once
saw could not be. Victims had been in immediate demand. Moreover, my
dungeon, as well as all the condemned cells at Toledo, had stone floors,
and light was not altogether excluded.

A fearful idea now suddenly drove the blood in torrents upon my heart,
and for a brief period, I once more relapsed into insensibility. Upon
recovering, I at once started to my feet, trembling convulsively
in every fibre. I thrust my arms wildly above and around me in all
directions. I felt nothing; yet dreaded to move a step, lest I should be
impeded by the walls of a tomb. Perspiration burst from every pore, and
stood in cold big beads upon my forehead. The agony of suspense grew
at length intolerable, and I cautiously moved forward, with my arms
extended, and my eyes straining from their sockets, in the hope of
catching some faint ray of light. I proceeded for many paces; but still
all was blackness and vacancy. I breathed more freely. It seemed evident
that mine was not, at least, the most hideous of fates.

And now, as I still continued to step cautiously onward, there came
thronging upon my recollection a thousand vague rumors of the horrors of
Toledo. Of the dungeons there had been strange things narrated--fables I
had always deemed them--but yet strange, and too ghastly to repeat, save
in a whisper. Was I left to perish of starvation in this subterranean
world of darkness; or what fate, perhaps even more fearful, awaited
me? That the result would be death, and a death of more than customary
bitterness, I knew too well the character of my judges to doubt. The
mode and the hour were all that occupied or distracted me.

My outstretched hands at length encountered some solid obstruction. It
was a wall, seemingly of stone masonry--very smooth, slimy, and cold.
I followed it up; stepping with all the careful distrust with which
certain antique narratives had inspired me. This process, however,
afforded me no means of ascertaining the dimensions of m