Page:Iron shroud, or, Italian revenge (3).pdf/11

11 the fifth had disappeared in the same manner as the preceding two, without the least distinguishable alteration of external appearances. The remaining four looked as the seven had originally looked; that is, occupying, at irregular distances, the top of the wall on that side of the dungeon. The tall folding door, too, still seemed to stand beneath in the centre of these four, as it had at first stood in the centre of the seven. But he could no longer doubt, what, on the preceding day, he fancied might be the effect of visual deception. The dungeon was smaller. The roof had lowered —and the opposite ends had contracted the intermediate distance by a space equal, he thought, to that over which three windows had extended. He was bewildered in vain imaginations to account for these things. Some frightful purpose—some devilish torture of mind or body—some unheard-of device for producing exquisite misery, lurked, he was sure, in what had taken place. Oppressed with this belief, and distracted more by the dreadful uncertainty of whatever fate impended, than he could be dismayed, he thought, by the knowledge of the worst, he sat ruminating, hour after hour, yielding his fears in succession to every haggard fancy. At last a horrible suspicion flashed across his mind, and he started up with a frantic air. “Yes! ” he exclaimed, looking wildly round his dungeon, and shuddering as he spoke—“Yes: it must be so! I see it!—I feel the maddening truth like scorching flames upon my brain! Eternal God ?—support me! It must be so!—Yes, yes, that is to be my fate! Yon roof will descend! — these walls will hem me round—and slowly, slowly, crush me in their iron arms! Lord God! look down upon me, and in mercy strike me with instant