“I tried to crawl backwards,--I succeeded. I believe the story I recollected had an effect on me, I felt a contraction of muscles corresponding to what I had read of. I felt myself almost liberated by the sensation, and the next moment I was actually so;--I had got out of the passage I knew not how. I must have made one of those extraordinary exertions, whose energy is perhaps not only increased by, but dependent on, our unconsciousness of them. However it was, I was extricated, and stood breathless and exhausted, with the dying lamp in my hand, staring around me, and seeing nothing but the black and dripping walls, and the low arches of the vault, that seemed to lower over me like the frown of an eternal hostility,--a frown that forbids hope or escape. The lamp was rapidly extinguishing in my hand,--I gazed on it with a fixed eye. I knew that my life, and, what was dearer than my life, my liberation, depended on my watching its last glimpse, yet I gazed on it with the eye of an ideot,--a stupified stare. The lamp glimmered more faintly,--its dying gleams awoke me to recollection. I roused myself,--I looked around. A strong flash discovered an object near me. I shuddered,--I uttered cries, though I was unconscious of doing so, for a voice said to me,--“Hush, be silent; I left you only to reconnoitre the passages. I have made out the way to the trap-door,--be silent, and all is well.” I advanced trembling, my companion appeared trembling too. He whispered, “Is the lamp so nearly extinguished?”--“You see.”--“Try to keep it in for a few moments.”--“I will; but, if I cannot, what then?”--“Then we must perish,” he added, with an execration that I thought would have brought down the vaults over our heads. It is certain, Sir, however, that desperate sentiments are best suited to desperate emergencies, and this wretch’s blasphemies gave me a kind of horrible confidence in his courage. On he went, muttering curses before me; and I followed, watching the last light of the lamp with agony increased by my fear of further provoking my horrible guide. I have before mentioned how our feelings, even in the most fearful exigencies, dwindle into petty and wretched details. With all my care, however, the lamp declined,--quivered,--flashed a pale light, like the smile of despair on me, and was extinguished. I shall never forget the look my guide threw on me by its sinking light. I had watched it like the last beatings of an expiring heart, like the shiverings of a spirit about to part for eternity. I saw it extinguished, and believed myself already among those for “whom the blackness of darkness is reserved for ever.”