In his frenzy he shook my arm as a terrier shakes a rat, and, like a dog, he held on, daring me to release myself.
For the moment an instinct half-murderous leapt in me. It sank and was overwhelmed in a slough of some more secret emotion.
"Oh!" I whispered, collapsing, as it were, to the man's fury, even pitifully deprecating it. "What is it? What's there? It drew me—something unnameable".
He gave a snapping laugh like a cough. His rage waxed second by second. There was a maniacal suggestiveness in it; and not much longer, it was evident, could he have it under control. I saw it run and congest in his eyes; and, on the instant of its accumulation, he tore at me with a sudden wild strength, and drove me up against the very door of the secret cell.
The action, the necessity of self-defence, restored me to some measure of dignity and sanity.
"Let me go, you ruffian!" I cried, struggling to free myself from his grasp.
It was useless. He held me madly. There was no beating him off: and, so holding me, he managed to produce a single key from one of his pockets, and to slip it with a rusty clang into the lock of the door.
"You dirty, prying civilian!" he panted at me, as he swayed this way and that with the pull of my body. "You shall have your wish, by G—! You want to see inside, do you? Look, then!"
He dashed open the door as he spoke, and pulled me violently into the opening. A great waft of the cold, dank air came at us, and with it—what?
The warder had jerked his dark lantern from his belt, and now—an arm of his still clasped about one of mine—snapped the slide open.