Page:Edgar Huntly, or The Sleep Walker.djvu/163

 a self-preserving and involuntary impulse. Had I foreknown the pangs to which my ravenous and bloody meal would give birth, I should have carefully abstained; and yet these pangs were a useful effort of nature to subdue and convert to nourishment the matter I had swallowed.

I was now assailed by the torments of thirst; my inven— tion and my courage were anew ant to obviate this pressing evil. I reflected that there was some recess from this cavern, even from the spot where I now stood: before, I was doubtful whether in this direction from this pit any avenue could be found; but since the panther had come hither there was reason to suppose the existence of some such avenue.

I now likewise attended to a sound, which, from its invariable tenour, denoted somewhat different from the whistling of a gale; it seemed like the murmur of a running stream. I now prepared to go forward, and endeavoured to move along in that direction in which this sound apparently came.

On either side and above my head there was nothing but vacuity. My steps were to be guided by the pavement, which, though unequal and rugged, appeared on the whole to ascend. My safety required that I should employ both hands and feet in exploring my way.

I went on thus for a considerable period. The murmur, instead of becoming more distinct, gradually died away. My progress was arrested by fatigue, and I began once more to despond. My exertions produced a perspiration, which, while it augmented my thirst, happily supplied me with imperfect means of appeasing it.

This expedient would perhaps have been accidentally suggested, but my ingenuity was assisted by remembering the history of certain English prisoners in Bengal, whom their merciless enemy imprisoned in a small room, and some of whom preserved themselves alive merely by swallowing the moisture that flowed from their bodies. This experiment I now performed with no less success.

This was slender and transitory consolation; I knew that wandering at random I might never reach the outlet of this cavern, or might be disabled by hunger and fatigue from going farther than the outlet. The cravings which had