Walking onward and incautiously looking behind me as
I proceeded, I did not observe a flight of steep steps, slippery from
the damp slime that exudes below ground, and that led--where? I never
knew, for suddenly losing my footing, I fell headlong down into a dark
abyss, where I lay stunned and senseless.

How long I remained thus it is impossible to tell, for when I recovered
my senses sufficiently to grope around me, I could recollect nothing,
but I found my head cut and bleeding profusely. I felt the warm blood
trickling down my neck and matting my hair. I tried to stand upon my
feet, but swooned again from loss of blood. I had just presence of mind
when I awoke from my swoon to bind up my head with a handkerchief.

I remained for long on the cold ground in a sitting posture and tried to
collect my ideas. Gradually I became aware of the horror of my
situation. Of course my taper was extinguished by my fall. I essayed to
relight it, but the material was damp with the dews of the catacomb and
with my blood, besides which my strength failed me. I began to feel
hungry, too, for I had eaten but a light breakfast. Could anything have
been more pitiable than my plight? Wounded in the head and weakened with
loss of blood, lost in the very heart of the catacombs without a light,
without the barest prospect of mortal coming to my rescue, hungry, the
little bread that I had taken with me wasted to make a clue which I now
found it impossible to trace in the dark, and with every prospect of a
lingering death before me!

With difficulty I clambered up the steps and searched in vain for the
crumbs of bread on my hands and knees. I was nigh fainting again, but
that strong love of life that is instinctive in us all made me screw up
my nerves with a preternatural energy, and I essayed to shout for help.

Although I must have been aware of the futility of my attempts, we all
know that a drowning man will cling to a straw, so bracing my strength
up to its utmost possible pitch, I gave vent to a superhuman shriek,
which re-echoed through the gloomy arches like the mocking laugh of
demons.

The sound of my own voice in agony amidst the awful silence of this
place of tombs sent a new thrill of horror through my frame, my nerves
being rendered weak and sensitive by the loss of vital fluid I had
sustained, and jarred upon the full consciousness of my terrible
situation. I felt on the brink of madness. Every now and then I heard
the rumbl