CHAPTER III. I was then led back to my prison. My bed, as before mentioned, had been removed, and a straw mattress in its stead laid on the ground. The table was firmly screwed down, and, in place of the chair, I found a very low wooden bench. Many days passed over in dreary captivity, without any farther examination, and without the slightest variety. The time of a prisoner is seldom or never a blank; it is filled up by horrible phantoms and distorted reveries, such as have often been described, though mine probably were of a new character. The detail of them, however, is not within the limits of my present undertaking; I record only simple facts, in the manner of an obtuse old chronicler; and if there be a colouring of imagination, it is not only unsought, but unwelcome and involuntary. During these three days, I did not behold the features of any living being, except the peevish face of an old sub-janitor, who brought my food, and in the evening lighted my lamp. Hitherto, I had felt like a warrior, who, in a mood of martial excitement, was determined, at all, risks, to meet danger and fight his way to the last; but such passion had now time enough to decline entirely away. I fell into a dark melancholy trance, during which all things became indifferent. Even the cherished vision of Aurelia had faded, or floated in dim colours before me. But unless I had been in body as much disordered as in mind, this state of apathy could not, of necessity, continue long. In a short time my spirit was again roused, only to feel in all its force the horrid influence of nausea and oppression, which the dense atmosphere of the prison had produced, and against which I vainly endeavoured to contend. In the night I could no longer sleep. In the strange flickering shadows which the lamp-light threw upon the walls, myriads of distorted visages, one after another, or hundreds at a time, seemed to be grinning out upon me. To avoid this annoyance, I extinguished my lamp, and drew the upper mattress over my head--but in vain! It was now dark, indeed, but the spectres were visible by their own light, like portraits painted on a dark ground, and I heard more frightfully the hollow moans and rattling chains of the prisoners, through the horrid stillness of the night. Often did it seem to me as if I heard the dying groans of Hermogen and Euphemia. "Am I then guilty of your destruction? Was it not your own iniquity that brought you under the wrath of my avenging arm?" One night I had broken out furiously with these words, when, on the silence that for a moment succeeded, there distinctly and unequivocally arose a long deep-drawn sigh or groan, differing from the noises which had disturbed me before. The latter might have been imaginary--this was assuredly real, and the sound was reverberated through the vault. Driven to distraction, I howled out--"It is thou, Hermogen!--the hour of thy vengeance is come--there is for me no hope of rescue!"