"When my evidence is completed. Now, remember, you have to deal with men keen as hawks, and stealthy as tigers. But there is no real danger, if you keep your self-command. Observe all four as narrowly as you can, both for your own sake and for mine. Be careful to stand on the centre of the stool. But you had better not get upon it until they have searched the room. Now, good-bye. I trust to your courage. If any harm comes, I will avenge you." "A comfort that! What good will it be to me?" "If vengeance is no good, what are you doing here?" "Thank you. That is no business of yours. Don’t let me detain you." He told me afterwards that he had vexed me on purpose to arouse my mettle. And I am sure I needed it. "Ah! now you are all right. If your caution fails you, the man who slew your father will be sure to escape us." "If it fails me, ’twill be from anger, not from terror." "I know it. Let me look at you." He threw the full light on my face. The burnished concave was not brighter or firmer than my eyes. "Pale as death, and quite as resolute. Rely only upon yourself." "God and myself," I whispered, as he glided out of sight along the vaults below. I could see no other entrance to the place in which I sat; but how could I tell? For a minute excitement kept me hot; but as the last gleam of the light died upon the wall below, my heart began to throb heavily, and a chill came over me. The pulse thumped in my ears, like a knocking in the cellar. "Was it fear?" I asked myself, in scorn that I should ask. No, it was not fear, but horrible suspense. The balance of life and death, of triumph and disgrace, swung there before me in the dark, as if my breath would turn it. No dream of a child, no vagary of the brain--the clear perception of strong will and soul poised upon this moment. The moment was too long; the powers began to fail, the senses grew more faint and confused at every heavy throb. Little images and little questions took the place of large ones. In vain I looked for even a cobweb, or the skeleton of a fly, where the dull light flickered through the pane of glass. In vain I listened for a mouse. Even a rat (much as I hate him) would have been welcome then. The repeater was purposely made so low of tick, that I got no comfort thence. All was deep, unfathomable silence, except the sound of my rebel heart. As a forlorn hope, I began to reckon sixty slowly, as a child keeps with a ticking clock. It would not do. My heart was beating louder than ever, and my hands were trembling; even my teeth rattled like dice in a box as the time approached.