There is always something solemn, even to a healthy and strong person, in the narrow bed in which at last all must lie down! it seems to remind the living they too must die; it is an object on which few can gaze without feeling a sense of dread! In our hero's situation there was much to increase these sensations, which he would have doubtless had at any time, but which at the present moment came with unusual force on his mind. He stood alone, amid a den of thieves and murderers, to which he had been wiled by a mysterious guide. Why was he there? For what reason had he been brought hither? He looked on that grim reminder of mortality with awe! He thought of the tyrant of Rome,--how Domitian had introduced his guests to a dark room, where they saw their coffins, and where black men armed rushed in to terrify them! Had he been thus brought,--was that narrow box to be his last resting-place? He felt a sickening feeling of horror creep over him. He was a brave man, and had it been in open day would have made a stand against any number; but to be immured in such a place,--so secret no mortal else could penetrate to him, or assist him; to be brutally butchered, perhaps cruelly tortured first; to die alone; his fate to be hid for ever; his body to moulder in these vaults; all was awful!--no wonder he felt terror! He thought too of his home, of his fond wife, his only child, and all his friends,--they would never know how or where he had died! Even now perhaps Ellen was seeking him with tears! alas! she would never find his lurking-place,--she would have no thread to pierce the labyrinth! Oh! the hours,--perhaps years of despairing hope,--years would give no clue! How he cursed the hour he listened to that tale! How he despised himself for his credulity! a kind of giddy feeling came over his brain; a dizzy haze rose before his eyes. The coffin and its black pall, and dim lights were there, but they grew dim, and still dimmer! Was it a dream after all? He pressed his hand over his eyes; he withdrew it again;--no, it was real, horribly true! Again that sickening, sinking feeling crushed him! He looked for a seat; there was the wolf skin covered ledge: he walked towards it, and then sank away. He soon felt better; the giddiness passed away, and he began once more to soliloquise.