Page:Edgar Huntly, or The Sleep Walker.djvu/254

 on the opposite steep. The chasm which severed us I knew to be impassable.—I withdrew from your sight.

"Some time after, awakening from a long sleep, I found victuals beside me. He that brought them was invisible. For a time I doubted whether some messenger of Heaven had not interposed for my salvation. How other than by supernatural means my retreat should be explored, I was unable to conceive: the summit was encompassed by dizzy and profound gulfs, and the subterranean passages were still closed.

"This opinion, though corrected by subsequent reflection, tended to change the course of my desperate thoughts.—My hunger, thus importunately urged, would not abstain, and I ate of the food that was provided. Henceforth I determined to live, to resume the path of obscurity and labour which I had relinquished, and Wait till my God should summon me to retribution:—to anticipate his call is only to redouble our guilt.

"I designed not to return to Inglefield's service, but to choose some other and remoter district. Meanwhile, I had left in his possession a treasure which my determination to die had rendered of no value, but which my change of resolution restored. Enclosed in a box at Inglefield's were the memoirs of Euphemia Lorimer; by which in all my vicissitudes I had been hitherto accompanied, and from which I consented to part only because I had refused to live: my existence was now to be prolonged, and this manuscript was once more to constitute the torment and the solace of my being.

"I hastened to Inglefield's by night. There was no need to warn him of my purpose; I desired that my fate should be an eternal secret to my ancient master and his neighbours. The apartment containing my box was well known, and easily accessible.

"The box was found, but broken and rifled of its treasure. My transports of astonishment, and indignation, and grief, yielded to the resumption of my fatal purpose: I hastened back to the hill, and determined anew to perish.

"This mood continued to the evening of the ensuing