“Was unsophisticated, unselfpossessed in the sense of educated reason,” he finished.
“I admit that the cases are not parallel,” answered the voice. “The advantage is certainly on your side in that respect.”
“I would submit,” said Gilead, “that the test, to be adequate, should be applied to a like unintelligence.”
“I am dogged and spied upon,” said the voice. “The time is too short, and the risk of delay too instant. A bird in the hand—eh? And you make it your interest to pursue the truth. I am sure you will surmount the ordeal triumphantly. Good-night! I shall be here again in the morning.”
The thread of light went out. Gilead threw himself against the door, yelling and battering; but its jambs were solidly sunk in the brick-work, and he barked his knuckles in vain. Pausing in the midst of his frenzy, he heard a far distant boom as of the hall door shutting, and knew that he was left alone, immured deep down in the deserted house.
On the instant he recollected himself, and, with a violent wrench of will, brought all his reason to bear on the situation.
To be buried for a few hours in a dark crypt! What was there in that to appal an educated mind? He tried to laugh; but stopped aghast to hear his own voice in that tremendous silence. It seemed to evoke somewhere a wicked response. That was nonsense, of course. There was nothing inherently sinister in his position or his surroundings. He was merely shut into the commonplace wine-cellar of a commonplace house. Let him consider the prospect and its obvious necessities. The first was to forget himself—in sleep, if possible. That should be obtainable by a calm method of reflection.
He had not moved as yet—had not dared to. The blackness was gross, terrific. Now, all of a sudden, he remembered his matchbox, and with a sigh of relief felt for and found it. Opening it with infinite caution, he fingered a couple of matches, no more. One on the instant slipped from his nervous hold, and fell to the floor. Taking an instinctive step to recover it, his foot trod out a little flare and explosion, gone in a moment, and only a single match remained to him. He clutched it as a drowning man a straw.
Should he nurse that little potential spark—keep the moral of its consolation always between himself and despair? Better, he thought, to resolve at once the mystery of his prison than to torment himself with imagined terrors.
The match was a stout wax one. Giving himself no time for reflection, he struck it, and, guarding the flame jealously, held it aloft.