k, arms, and legs, as if
beaten or bruised. I have said I was still in darkness, yet it was not
the blackness of the last night; and looking up into the inside of the
tomb above, I could see the faintest line of light at one corner, which
showed the sun was up. For this line of light was the sunlight, filtering
slowly through a crevice at the joining of the stones; but the sides of
the tomb had been fitted much closer than I reckoned for, and it was
plain there would never be light in the place enough to guide me to my
work. All this I considered as I rested on the ground, for I had sat down
again, feeling too tired to stand. But as I kept my eye on the narrow
streak of light I was much startled, for I looked at the south-west
corner of the tomb, and yet was looking towards the sun. This I gathered
from the tone of the light; and although there was no direct outlet to
the air, and only a glimmer came in, as I have said, yet I knew certainly
that the sun was low in the west and falling full upon this stone.

Here was a surprise, and a sad one for me, for I perceived that I had
slept away a day, and that the sun was setting for another night. And yet
it mattered little, for night or daytime there was no light to help me in
this horrible place; and though my eyes had grown accustomed to the
gloom, I could make out nothing to show me where to work. So I took out
my tinder-box, meaning to fan the match into a flame, and to get at least
one moment's look at the place, and then to set to digging with my hands.

But as I lay asleep the top had been pressed off the box, and the tinder
got loose in my pocket; and though I picked the tinder out easily enough,
and got it in the box again, yet the salt damps of the place had soddened
it in the night, and spark by spark fell idle from the flint.

And then it was that I first perceived the danger in which I stood; for
there was no hope of kindling a light, and I doubted now whether even in
the light I could ever have done much to dislodge the great slab of
slate. I began also to feel very hungry, as not having eaten for
twenty-four hours; and worse than that, there was a parching thirst and
dryness in my throat, and nothing with which to quench it. Yet there was
no time to be lost if I was ever to get out alive, and so I groped with
my hands against the side of the grave until I made out the bottom edge
of the slab, and then fell to grubbing beneath it with my fingers. But
the earth,