.. it is flickering ... What's to be
done?... I shout "Hullo!" at the top of my voice. Yes, at the top of
my voice, but at the bottom of the caves. Then the question occurs to
me, of what use is it to shout in English? No one will understand me.
The candle-end is making a final struggle for life. So must I. "_He',
la bas!_" I shout "with all my might and main," like the celebrity
of the old nursery tale, who jumped into a quickset hedge as an
infallible remedy for blindness. No result. I think of the man in
the dungeon who was eaten by rats. Well-known case, but quite forget
the gentleman's name. Political prisoner probably whose offence had
been "ratting"--and so his punishment was made "to fit the crime,"
as Mr. GILBERT's _Mikado_ used to observe. Why do such grimly comic
reminiscences occur to me now, when I am in so really awful a
situation? So, once more I shout with desperation in my lungs, "_He!
la--! bas!_"
And--oh, the joy--oh, the rapture!--there comes back to me--"_He, la
bas!_ Blass the Prince of WAILES!"
It is DAUBINET. He advances from somewhere, from an opening, the
existence of which I had never suspected.
"Here! This way! _Par ici, mon ami; par ici!_"
And in another minute I am with him--I am out--_and so is the
candle-end_.
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