The truth
at length flashed upon me. In my first attempt at exploration I had
counted fifty-two paces, up to the period when I fell; I must then
have been within a pace or two of the fragment of serge; in fact, I
had nearly performed the circuit of the vault. I then slept, and
upon awaking, I must have returned upon my steps --thus supposing
the circuit nearly double what it actually was. My confusion of mind
prevented me from observing that I began my tour with the wall to
the left, and ended it with the wall to the right.
I had been deceived, too, in respect to the shape of the
enclosure. In feeling my way I had found many angles, and thus deduced
an idea of great irregularity; so potent is the effect of total
darkness upon one arousing from lethargy or sleep! The angles were
simply those of a few slight depressions, or niches, at odd intervals.
The general shape of the prison was square. What I had taken for
masonry seemed now to be iron, or some other metal, in huge plates,
whose sutures or joints occasioned the depression. The entire
surface of this metallic enclosure was rudely daubed in all the
hideous and repulsive devices to which the charnel superstition of the
monks has given rise.
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