Page:Edgar Huntly, or The Sleep Walker.djvu/158

 remembrance of my journey hither was lost: I had determined to explore this cave on the ensuing day; but my memory informed me not that this intention had been carried into effect: still it was only possible to conclude that I had come hither on my intended expedition, and had been thrown by another, or had, by some ill chance, fallen into the pit.

This opinion was conformable to what I had already observed:—the pavement and walls were rugged like those of the footing and sides of the cave through which I had formerly passed.

But if this were true, what was the abhorred catastrophe to which I was now reserved? The sides of this pit were inaccessible; human footsteps would never wander into these recesses: my friends were unapprised of my forlorn state; here I should continue till wasted by famine; in this grave should I linger out a few days in unspeakable agonies, and then perish for ever.

The inroads of hunger were already experienced; and this knowledge of the desperateness of my calamity urged me to frenzy. I had none but capricious and unseen Fate to condemn; the author of my distress, and the means he had taken to decoy me hither, were incomprehensible: surely my senses were fettered or depraved by some spell: I was still asleep, and this was merely a tormenting vision; or madness had seized me, and the darkness that environed, and the hunger that afflicted me, existed only in my own distempered imagination.

The consolation of these doubts could not last long; every hour added to the proofs that my perceptions were real:—my hunger speedily became ferocious; I tore the linen of my shirt between my teeth, and swallowed the fragments: I felt a strong propensity to bite the flesh from my arm; my heart overflowed with cruelty, and I pondered on the delight I should experience in rending some living animal to pieces, and drinking its blood and grinding its quivering fibres between my teeth.

This agony had already passed beyond the limits of endurance: I saw that time, instead of bringing respite or relief, would only aggravate my wants, and that my only