Page:Edgar Huntly, or The Sleep Walker.djvu/231

 it except by violence. My perplexities and doubts were not at an end; but those which constituted my chief torment were removed. I listened to my friend's entreaties to tell him the cause of my elopement, and the incidents that terminated in the present interview.

I began with relating my return to consciousness in the bottom of the pit—my efforts to free myself from this abhorred prison—the acts of horror to which I was impelled by famine, and their excruciating consequences—my gaining the outlet of the cavern—the desperate expedient by which I removed the impediment to my escape, and the deliverance of the captive girl—the contest I maintained before Deb's hut—my subsequent wanderings—the banquet which hospitality afforded me—my journey to the river bank—my meditations on the means of reaching the road—my motives for hazarding my life, by plunging into the stream—and my subsequent perils and fears till I reached the threshold of this habitation.

"Thus," continued I, "I have complied with your request; I have told all that I myself know that were the incidents between my sinking to rest at Inglefield's, and my awaking in the chamber of the hill—by what means and by whose contrivance, preternatural or human, this transition was effected, I am unable to explain; I cannot even guess.

"What has eluded my sagacity may not be beyond the reach of another: your own reflections on my tale, or some facts that have fallen under your notice, may enable you to furnish a solution. But, meanwhile, how am I to account for your appearance on this spot? This meeting was unexpected and abrupt to you; but it has not been less so to me: of all mankind, Sarsefield was the farthest from my thoughts when I saw these tokens of a traveller and a stranger.

"You were imperfectly acquainted with my wanderings:—you saw me on the ground before Deb's hut—you saw me plunge into the river—you endeavoured to destroy me while swimming—and you knew, before my narrative was heard, that Huntly was the object of your enmity. What was the motive of your search in the desert, and how were