Forty hours of this. Am growing weaker. My arm—[word scratched out]. Had to give up trying to start the glass in my helmet. Can't budge it....
Soon afterward occurs another passage in the same startling altered key:
Tried to get away this [morning], but the priests too suspicious. I wanted to try smashing the glass on a rock. Likely would have burst my ear drums anyway—
And further:
If I could get hold of a knife for three minutes. Bamboo stick [part illegible here]—can't tear vulcan canvas. No use....
When Peters read those lines aloud and looked up he confronted a sickly ring of auditors.
"Good God!" breathed Bartlet. "He couldn't get out!"
The knowledge of Albro's actual plight crashed upon us all in just that phrase, and I leave you to gauge its impact. We had had no hint of it. Here was the diary before us. We were only waiting to learn the present address of the diarist. Indeed our whole attitude toward the singular discovery we were making had been quite cheerful, even exultant, like that of children who follow the tribulations of some favorite hero, secure of the happy solution.
"Couldn't get out?" squeaked Jeckol. "How do you mean—he couldn't?"