Chapter Sixty One.
A Milliner’s Box.
I was not long about this business. I soon perceived that the back of the empty space was closed in by a large box, and a similar one blocked up the right side. The left was the diagonal edge of the case itself, about twenty inches or two feet in width.
But I troubled myself very little either about back, left, or right. It was the ceiling of the little chamber that had the greatest interest for me; for it was in that direction I intended, if possible, to continue my tunnel.
I knew that I was now far enough in the horizontal direction; for the chief advantage I had gained by the discovery of the empty space was, that it carried me the thickness of the piano-case—about two feet, as I have said—in this course, besides the distance that was open, upwards. Neither forward, then, nor to the right or left, did I wish to go, unless forced to do so by an obstacle. Upward was the echo of my thoughts. Excelsior! excelsior! Two or three stages more—perhaps less, if no obstacle intervened—and I might be free. My heart beat joyfully as the prospect passed before my mind.
It was not without a keen anxiety that I raised my hand to the ceiling of the empty chamber. My fingers trembled as they touched what I well knew to be canvas, and involuntarily they recoiled from it. O, mercy!—once more that hated fabric—a bale of linen!
I was not so sure of this however. I remembered the mistake I had already made in this regard. I must examine farther.
I closed my fist, and gave the bottom of the package a smart rap with my knuckles. Ha! it was a pleasant sound that answered to the blow. It was not a bale of linen, then, but a box, covered, like many others, with several folds of coarse cheap canvas. It could not be cloth, either; for instead of the dull report which the cloth-boxes give out when struck, the one in question returned a hollow sound, precisely that of one that was empty!