From what I overheard early in the morning, I was led to believe that the occasions when the vault was made use of were of very rare occurrence. It was probable that many months might elapse before the doors of the tomb would be again unbarred--and even should I survive until that period, what means could I have more than at present, of making known my situation or of escaping from the coffin? I resigned myself, therefore, with much tranquillity to my fate, and fell, after many hours, into a deep and deathlike sleep. How long I remained thus is to me a mystery. When I awoke my limbs were no longer cramped with the cramp of death--I was no longer without the power of motion. A very slight exertion was sufficient to force off the lid of my prison--for the dampness of the atmosphere had already occasioned decay in the woodwork around the screws. My steps as I groped around the sides of my habitation were, however, feeble and uncertain, and I felt all the gnawings of hunger with the pains of intolerable thirst. Yet, as time passed away, it is strange that I experienced little uneasiness from these scourges of the earth, in comparisons with the more terrible visitations of the fiend _Ennui_. Stranger still were the resources by which I endeavored to banish him from my presence. The sepulchre was large and subdivided into many compartments, and I busied myself in examining the peculiarities of their construction. I determined the length and breadth of my abode. I counted and recounted the stones of the masonry. But there were other methods by which I endeavored to lighten the tedium of my hours. Feeling my way among the numerous coffins ranged in order around, I lifted them down, one by one, and breaking open their lids, busied myself in speculations about the mortality within. "This," I reflected, tumbling over a carcass, puffy, bloated, and rotund--"this has been, no doubt, in every sense of the word, an unhappy--an unfortunate man. It has been his terrible lot not to walk, but to waddle--to pass through life not like a human being, but like an elephant--not like a man, but like a rhinoceros. "His attempts at getting on have been mere abortions--and his circumgyratory proceedings a palpable failure. Taking a step forward, it has been his misfortune to take two towards the right, and three towards the left. His studies have been confined to the Philosophy of Crabbe. "He can have had no idea of the wonders of a _Pirouette_. To him a _Pas de Papillon_ has been an abstract conception. "He has never ascended the summit of a hill. He has never viewed from any steeple the glories of a metropolis. "Heat has been his mortal enemy. In the dog-days his days have been the days of a dog. Therein, he has dreamed of flames and suffocation--of mountains upon mountains--of Pelion upon Ossa. "He was short of breath--to say all in a word--he was short of breath.