My worst
thoughts, then, were confirmed. The blackness of eternal night
encompassed me. I struggled for breath. The intensity of the
darkness seemed to oppress and stifle me. The atmosphere was
intolerably close. I still lay quietly, and made effort to exercise my
reason. I brought to mind the inquisitorial proceedings, and attempted
from that point to deduce my real condition. The sentence had
passed; and it appeared to me that a very long interval of time had
since elapsed. Yet not for a moment did I suppose myself actually
dead. Such a supposition, notwithstanding what we read in fiction,
is altogether inconsistent with real existence; --but where and in
what state was I? The condemned to death, I knew, perished usually
at the autos-da-fe, and one of these had been held on the very night
of the day of my trial. Had I been remanded to my dungeon, to await
the next sacrifice, which would not take place for many months? This I
at once saw could not be. Victims had been in immediate demand.
Moreover, my dungeon, as well as all the condemned cells at Toledo,
had stone floors, and light was not altogether excluded.
A fearful idea now suddenly drove the blood in torrents upon my
heart, and for a brief period, I once more relapsed into
insensibility.
Pages:
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25