I looked closer, she was my own sister,--my only one,----and I had heard her voice grow fainter and fainter. I had heard----” and his own voice grew fainter--it ceased. “Trembling for a life with which my own was linked, I staggered towards him. I raised him half up in my arms, and recollecting there must be a current of air through the trap-door, I attempted to trail him along thither. I succeeded, and, as the breeze played over him, I saw with delight unutterable the diminution of the light that streamed through it. It was _evening_,--there was no longer any necessity, no longer any time for delay. He recovered, for his swoon arose not from exhausted sensibility, but from mere inanition. However it was, I found my interest in watching his recovery; and, had I been adequate to the task of observing extraordinary vicissitudes of the human mind, I would have been indeed amazed at the change that he manifested on his recovery. Without the least reference to his late story, or late feelings, he started from my arms at the discovery that the light had diminished, and prepared for our escape through the trap-door, with a restored energy of strength, and sanity of intellect, that might have been deemed miraculous if it had occurred in a convent:--Happening to occur full thirty feet below the proper surface for a miracle, it must be put to the account of strong excitement merely. I could not indeed dare to believe a miracle was wrought in favour of my profane attempt, and so I was glad to put up with second causes. With incredible dexterity he climbed up the wall, with the help of the rugged stones and my shoulders,--threw open the trap-door, pronounced that all was safe, assisted me to ascend after him,--and, with gasping delight, I once more breathed the breath of heaven. The night was perfectly dark. I could not distinguish the buildings from the trees, except when a faint breeze gave motion to the latter. To this darkness, I am convinced, I owe the preservation of my reason under such vicissitudes,--the glory of a resplendent night would have driven me mad, emerging from darkness, famine, and cold. I would have wept, and laughed, and knelt, and turned idolater. I would have “worshipped the host of heaven, and the moon walking in her brightness.” Darkness was my best security, in every sense of the word. We traversed the garden, without feeling the ground under our feet. As we approached the wall, I became again deadly sick,--my senses grew giddy, I reeled. I whispered to my companion, “Are there not lights gleaming from the convent windows?”--“No, the lights are flashing from your own eyes,--it is only the effect of darkness, famine, and fear,--come on.”--“But I hear a sound of bells.”--“The bells are ringing only in your ears,--an empty stomach is your sexton, and you fancy you hear bells. Is this a time to faulter?--come on, come on. Don’t hang such a dead weight on my arm,--don’t fall, if you can help it. Oh God, he has swooned!”