I saw clearly the doom which had been prepared for me, and congratulated myself upon the timely accident by which I had escaped.  Another step before my fall, and the world had seen me no more.  And the death just avoided, was of that very character which I had regarded as fabulous and frivolous in the tales respecting the Inquisition.  To the victims of its tyranny, there was the choice of death with its direst physical agonies, or death with its most hideous moral horrors.  I had been reserved for the latter.  By long suffering my nerves had been unstrung, until I trembled at the sound of my own voice, and had become in every respect a fitting subject for the species of torture which awaited me.

Shaking in every limb, I groped my way back to the wall; resolving there to perish rather than risk the terrors of the wells, of which my imagination now pictured many in various positions about the dungeon.  In other conditions of mind I might have had courage to end my misery at once by a plunge into one of these abysses; but now I was the veriest of cowards.  Neither could I forget what I had read of these pits —­ that the sudden extinction of life formed no part of their most horrible plan.

Agitation of spirit kept me awake for many long hours; but at length I again slumbered.  Upon arousing, I found by my side, as before, a loaf and a pitcher of water.  A burning thirst consumed me, and I emptied the vessel at a draught.  It must have been drugged; for scarcely had I drunk, before I became irresistibly drowsy.  A deep sleep fell upon me —­ a sleep like that of death.  How long it lasted of course, I know not; but when, once again, I unclosed my eyes, the objects around me were visible.  By a wild sulphurous lustre, the origin of which I could not at first determine, I was enabled to see the extent and aspect of the prison.

In its size I had been greatly mistaken.  The whole circuit of its walls did not exceed twenty-five yards.  For some minutes this fact occasioned me a world of vain trouble; vain indeed! for what could be of less importance, under the terrible circumstances which environed me, then the mere dimensions of my dungeon?  But my soul took a wild interest in trifles, and I busied myself in endeavors to account for the error I had committed in my measurement.  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.