Page:Twenty Thousand Verne Frith 1876.pdf/82



CHAPTER IX.

NED LAND’S ANGER.

How long we slept I do not know, but it must have been some time, as we awoke completely refreshed. I was the first to awake. My companions had not stirred, and remained stretched in the corner like lifeless beings.

Scarcely had I got up from my hard bed, when I perceived that my brain was clear and my mind invigorated. I then began to re-examine our cell attentively.

Nothing had been altered in its arrangement. The prison was still a prison—the prisoners still prisoners. But the steward had cleared the table while we slept. There was no symptom of any approaching change for the better, and I began to wonder whether we were destined to live for ever in that cage.

This prospect was so much the more unpleasant, as, if my brain were clear, I felt my chest very much oppressed. My breathing had become difficult, the heavy air was not sufficient for the play of my lungs. The cell was certainly of large size, but it was evident that we had consumed the greater part of the oxygen it had contained. Each man breathes in an hour the amount of oxygen