Edgar Huntly; or, Memoirs of a Sleep-Walker

by Charles Brockden Brown

  Chapter XVI.

  Here, my friend, thou must permit me to pause. The following incidentsare of a kind to which the most ardent invention has never conceived aparallel. Fortune, in her most wayward mood, could scarcely be suspectedof an influence like this. The scene was pregnant with astonishment andhorror. I cannot, even now, recall it without reviving the dismay andconfusion which I then experienced.

  Possibly, the period will arrive when I shall look back without agony onthe perils I have undergone. That period is still distant. Solitude andsleep are now no more than the signals to summon up a tribe of uglyphantoms. Famine, and blindness, and death, and savage enemies, neverfail to be conjured up by the silence and darkness of the night. Icannot dissipate them by any efforts of reason. Sly cowardice requiresthe perpetual consolation of light. My heart droops when I mark thedecline of the sun, and I never sleep but with a candle burning at mypillow. If, by any chance, I should awake and find myself immersed indarkness, I know not what act of desperation I might be suddenlyimpelled to commit.

  I have delayed this narrative longer than my duty to my friend enjoined.Now that I am able to hold a pen, I will hasten to terminate thatuncertainty with regard to my fate in which my silence has involvedthee. I will recall that series of unheard-of and disastrousvicissitudes which has constituted the latest portion of my life.

  I am not certain, however, that I shall relate them in an intelligiblemanner. One image runs into another; sensations succeed in so rapid atrain, that I fear I shall be unable to distribute and express them withsufficient perspicuity. As I look back, my heart is sore, and acheswithin my bosom. I am conscious to a kind of complex sentiment ofdistress and forlornness that cannot be perfectly portrayed by words;but I must do as well as I can. In the utmost vigour of my faculties, noeloquence that I possess would do justice to the tale. Now, in mylanguishing and feeble state, I shall furnish thee with little more thana glimpse of the truth. With these glimpses, transient and faint as theyare, thou must be satisfied.

  I have said that I slept. My memory assures me of this; it informs me ofthe previous circumstances of my laying aside my clothes, of placing thelight upon a chair within reach of my pillow, of throwing myself uponthe bed, and of gazing on the rays of the moon reflected on the wall andalmost obscured by those of the candle. I remember my occasionalrelapses into fits of incoherent fancies, the harbingers of sleep. Iremember, as it were, the instant when my thoughts ceased to flow and mysenses were arrested by the leaden wand of forgetfulness.

  My return to sensation and to consciousness took place in no suchtranquil scene. I emerged from oblivion by degrees so slow and so faint,that their succession cannot be marked. When enabled at length to attendto the information which my senses afforded, I was conscious for a timeof nothing but existence. It was unaccompanied with lassitude or pain,but I felt disinclined to stretch my limbs or raise my eyelids. Mythoughts were wildering and mazy, and, though consciousness was present,it was disconnected with the locomotive or voluntary power.

  From this state a transition was speedily effected. I perceived that myposture was supine, and that I lay upon my back. I attempted to open myeyes. The weight that oppressed them was too great for a slight exertionto remove. The exertion which I made cost me a pang more acute than anywhich I ever experienced. My eyes, however, were opened; but thedarkness that environed me was as intense as before.

  I attempted to rise, but my limbs were cold, and my joints had almostlost their flexibility. My efforts were repeated, and at length Iattained a sitting posture. I was now sensible of pain in my shouldersand back. I was universally in that state to which the frame is reducedby blows of a club, mercilessly and endlessly repeated; my templesthrobbed, and my face was covered with clammy and cold drops: but thatwhich threw me into deepest consternation was my inability to see. Iturned my head to different quarters; I stretched my eyelids, andexerted every visual energy, but in vain. I was wrapped in the murkiestand most impenetrable gloom.

  The first effort of reflection was to suggest the belief that I wasblind: that disease is known to assail us in a moment and withoutprevious warning. This, surely, was the misfortune that had now befallenme. Some ray, however fleeting and uncertain, could not fail to bediscerned, if the power of vision were not utterly extinguished. In whatcircumstances could I possibly be placed, from which every particle oflight should, by other means, be excluded?

  This led my thoughts into a new train. I endeavoured to recall the past;but the past was too much in contradiction to the present, and myintellect was too much shattered by external violence, to allow meaccurately to review it.

  Since my sight availed nothing to the knowledge of my condition, Ibetook myself to other instruments. The element which I breathed wasstagnant and cold. The spot where I lay was rugged and hard. I wasneither naked nor clothed: a shirt and trousers composed my dress, andthe shoes and stockings, which always accompanied these, were nowwanting. What could I infer from this scanty garb, this chillingatmosphere, this stony bed?

  I had awakened as from sleep. What was my condition when I fell asleep?Surely it was different from the present. Then I inhabited a lightsomechamber and was stretched upon a down bed; now I was supine upon arugged surface and immersed in palpable obscurity. Then I was in perfecthealth; now my frame was covered with bruises and every joint was rackedwith pain. What dungeon or den had received me, and by whose command wasI transported hither?

  After various efforts I stood upon my feet. At first I tottered andstaggered. I stretched out my hands on all sides, but met only withvacuity. I advanced forward. At the third step my foot moved somethingwhich lay upon the ground: I stooped and took it up, and found, onexamination, that it was an Indian tomahawk. This incident afforded meno hint from which I might conjecture my state.

  Proceeding irresolutely and slowly forward, my hands at length touched awall. This, like the flooring, was of stone, and was rugged andimpenetrable. I followed this wall. An advancing angle occurred at ashort distance, which was followed by similar angles. I continued toexplore this clue, till the suspicion occurred that I was merely goinground the walls of a vast and irregular apartment.

  The utter darkness disabled me from comparing directions and distances.This discovery, therefore, was not made on a sudden, and was stillentangled with some doubt. My blood recovered some warmth, and mymuscles some elasticity; but in proportion as my sensibility returned,my pains augmented. Overpowered by my fears and my agonies, I desistedfrom my fruitless search, and sat down, supporting my back against thewall.

  My excruciating sensations for a time occupied my attention. These, incombination with other causes, gradually produced a species of delirium.I existed, as it were, in a wakeful dream. With nothing to correct myerroneous perceptions, the images of the past occurred in capriciouscombinations and vivid hues. Methought I was the victim of some tyrantwho had thrust me into a dungeon of his fortress, and left me no powerto determine whether he intended I should perish with famine, or lingerout a long life in hopeless imprisonment. Whether the day was shut outby insuperable walls, or the darkness that surrounded me was owing tothe night and to the smallness of those crannies through which daylightwas to be admitted, I conjectured in vain.

  Sometimes I imagined myself buried alive. Methought I had fallen intoseeming death, and my friends had consigned me to the tomb, from which aresurrection was impossible. That, in such a case, my limbs would havebeen confined to a coffin, and my coffin to a grave, and that I shouldinstantly have been suffocated, did not occur to destroy my supposition.Neither did this supposition overwhelm me with terror or prompt myefforts at deliverance. My state was full of tumult and confusion, andmy attention was incessantly divided between my painful sensations andmy feverish dreams.

  There is no standard by which time can be measured but the succession ofour thoughts and the changes that take place in the external world. Fromthe latter I was totally excluded. The former made the lapse of somehours appear like the tediousness of weeks and months
. At length, a newsensation recalled my rambling meditations, and gave substance to myfears. I now felt the cravings of hunger, and perceived that, unless mydeliverance were speedily effected, I must suffer a tedious andlingering death.

  I once more tasked my understanding and my senses to discover the natureof my present situation and the means of escape. I listened to catchsome sound. I heard an unequal and varying echo, sometimes near andsometimes distant, sometimes dying away and sometimes swelling intoloudness. It was unlike any thing I had before heard, but it was evidentthat it arose from wind sweeping through spacious halls and windingpassages. These tokens were incompatible with the result of theexamination I had made. If my hands were true, I was immured betweenwalls through which there was no avenue.

  I now exerted my voice, and cried as loud as my wasted strength wouldadmit. Its echoes were sent back to me in broken and confused sounds andfrom above. This effort was casual, but some part of that uncertainty inwhich I was involved was instantly dispelled by it. In passing throughthe cavern on the former day, I have mentioned the verge of the pit atwhich I arrived. To acquaint me as far as was possible with thedimensions of the place, I had hallooed with all my force, knowing thatsound is reflected according to the distance and relative positions ofthe substances from which it is repelled.

  The effect produced by my voice on this occasion resembled, withremarkable exactness, the effect which was then produced. Was I, then,shut up in the same cavern? Had I reached the brink of the sameprecipice and been thrown headlong into that vacuity? Whence else couldarise the bruises which I had received, but from my fall? Yet allremembrance of my journey hither was lost. I had determined to explorethis cave on the ensuing day, but my memory informed me not that thisintention had been carried into effect. Still, it was only possible toconclude that I had come hither on my intended expedition, and had beenthrown by another, or had, by some ill chance, fallen, into the pit.

  This opinion was conformable to what I had already observed. Thepavement and walls were rugged like those of the footing and sides ofthe cave through which I had formerly passed.

  But if this were true, what was the abhorred catastrophe to which I wasnow reserved? The sides of this pit were inaccessible; human footstepswould never wander into these recesses. My friends were unapprized of myforlorn state. Here I should continue till wasted by famine. In thisgrave should I linger out a few days in unspeakable agonies, and thenperish forever.

  The inroads of hunger were already experienced; and this knowledge ofthe desperateness of my calamity urged me to frenzy. I had none butcapricious and unseen fate to condemn. The author of my distress, andthe means he had taken to decoy me hither, were incomprehensible. Surelymy senses were fettered or depraved by some spell. I was still asleep,and this was merely a tormenting vision; or madness had seized me, andthe darkness that environed and the hunger that afflicted me existedonly in my own distempered imagination.

  The consolation of these doubts could not last long. Every hour added tothe proof that my perceptions were real. My hunger speedily becameferocious. I tore the linen of my shirt between my teeth and swallowedthe fragments. I felt a strong propensity to bite the flesh from my arm.My heart overflowed with cruelty, and I pondered on the delight I shouldexperience in rending some living animal to pieces, and drinking itsblood and grinding its quivering fibres between my teeth.

  This agony had already passed beyond the limits of endurance. I saw thattime, instead of bringing respite or relief, would only aggravate mywants, and that my only remaining hope was to die before I should beassaulted by the last extremes of famine. I now recollected that atomahawk was at hand, and rejoiced in the possession of an instrument bywhich I could so effectually terminate my sufferings.

  I took it in my hand, moved its edge over my fingers, and reflected onthe force that was required to make it reach my heart. I investigatedthe spot where it should enter, and strove to fortify myself withresolution to repeat the stroke a second or third time, if the firstshould prove insufficient. I was sensible that I might fail to inflict amortal wound, but delighted to consider that the blood which would bemade to flow would finally release me, and that meanwhile my pains wouldbe alleviated by swallowing this blood.

  You will not wonder that I felt some reluctance to employ so fatalthough indispensable a remedy. I once more ruminated on the possibilityof rescuing myself by other means. I now reflected that the uppertermination of the wall could not be at an immeasurable distance fromthe pavement. I had fallen from a height; but if that height had beenconsiderable, instead of being merely bruised, should I not have beendashed into pieces?

  Gleams of hope burst anew upon my soul. Was it not possible, I asked, toreach the top of this pit? The sides were rugged and uneven. Would nottheir projectures and abruptnesses serve me as steps by which I mightascend in safety? This expedient was to be tried without delay. Shortlymy strength would fail, and my doom would be irrevocably sealed.

  I will not enumerate my laborious efforts, my alternations ofdespondency and confidence, the eager and unwearied scrutiny with whichI examined the surface, the attempts which I made, and the failureswhich, for a time, succeeded each other. A hundred times, when I hadascended some feet from the bottom, I was compelled to relinquish myundertaking by the _untenable_ smoothness of the spaces whichremained to be gone over. A hundred times I threw myself, exhausted byfatigue and my pains, on the ground. The consciousness was graduallyrestored that, till I had attempted every part of the wall, it wasabsurd to despair, and I again drew my tottering limbs and aching jointsto that part of the wall which had not been surveyed.

  At length, as I stretched my hand upward, I found somewhat that seemedlike a recession in the wall. It was possible that this was the top ofthe cavity, and this might be the avenue to liberty. My heart leapedwith joy, and I proceeded to climb the wall. No undertaking could beconceived more arduous than this. The space between this verge and thefloor was nearly smooth. The verge was higher from the bottom than myhead. The only means of ascending that were offered me were by my hands,with which I could draw myself upward so as, at length, to maintain myhold with my feet.

  My efforts were indefatigable, and at length I placed myself on theverge. When this was accomplished, my strength was nearly gone. Had Inot found space enough beyond this brink to stretch myself at length, Ishould unavoidably have fallen backward into the pit, and all my painshad served no other end than to deepen my despair and hasten mydestruction.

  What impediments and perils remained to be encountered I could notjudge. I was now inclined to forebode the worst. The interval of reposewhich was necessary to be taken, in order to recruit my strength, wouldaccelerate the ravages of famine, and leave me without the power toproceed.

  In this state, I once more consoled myself that an instrument of deathwas at hand. I had drawn up with me the tomahawk, being sensible that,should this impediment be overcome, others might remain that would proveinsuperable. Before I employed it, however, I cast my eyes wildly andlanguidly around. The darkness was no less intense than in the pitbelow, and yet two objects were distinctly seen.

  They resembled a fixed and obscure flame. They were motionless. Thoughlustrous themselves, they created no illumination around them. Thiscircumstance, added to others, which reminded me of similar objectsnoted on former occasions, immediately explained the nature of what Ibeheld. These were the eyes of a panther.

  Thus had I struggled to obtain a post where a savage was lurking andwaited only till my efforts should place me within reach of his fangs.The first impulse was to arm myself against this enemy. Thedesperateness of my condition was, for a moment, forgotten. The weaponwhich was so lately lifted against my own bosom was now raised to defendmy life against the assault of another.

  There was no time for deliberation and delay. In a moment he mightspring from his station and tear me to pieces. My utmost speed might notenable me to reach him where he sat, but merely to encounter hisassault. I did not reflect how far my strength was adequ
ate to save me.All the force that remained was mustered up and exerted in a throw.

  No one knows the powers that are latent in his constitution. Calledforth by imminent dangers, our efforts frequently exceed our mostsanguine belief. Though tottering on the verge of dissolution, andapparently unable to crawl from this spot, a force was exerted in thisthrow, probably greater than I had ever before exerted. It wasresistless and unerring. I aimed at the middle space between thoseglowing orbs. It penetrated the skull, and the animal fell, strugglingand shrieking, on the ground.

  My ears quickly informed me when his pangs were at an end. His cries andhis convulsions lasted for a moment and then ceased. The effect of hisvoice, in these subterranean abodes, was unspeakably rueful.

  The abruptness of this incident, and the preternatural exertion of mystrength, left me in a state of languor and sinking, from which slowlyand with difficulty I recovered. The first suggestion that occurred wasto feed upon the carcass of this animal. My hunger had arrived at thatpitch where all fastidiousness and scruples are at an end. I crept tothe spot. I will not shock you by relating the extremes to which direnecessity had driven me. I review this scene with loathing and horror.Now that it is past I look back upon it as on some hideous dream. Thewhole appears to be some freak of insanity. No alternative was offered,and hunger was capable of being appeased even by a banquet sodetestable.

  If this appetite has sometimes subdued the sentiments of nature, andcompelled the mother to feed upon the flesh of her offspring, it willnot excite amazement that I did not turn from the yet warm blood andreeking fibres of a brute.

  One evil was now removed, only to give place to another. The firstsensations of fullness had scarcely been felt when my stomach was seizedby pangs, whose acuteness exceeded all that I ever before experienced. Ibitterly lamented my inordinate avidity. The excruciations of faminewere better than the agonies which this abhorred meal had produced.

  Death was now impending with no less proximity and certainty, though ina different form. Death was a sweet relief for my present miseries, andI vehemently longed for its arrival. I stretched myself on the ground. Ithrew myself into every posture that promised some alleviation of thisevil. I rolled along the pavement of the cavern, wholly inattentive tothe dangers that environed me. That I did not fall into the pit whence Ihad just emerged must be ascribed to some miraculous chance.

  How long my miseries endured, it is not possible to tell. I cannot evenform a plausible conjecture. Judging by the lingering train of mysensations, I should conjecture that some days elapsed in thisdeplorable condition; but nature could riot have so long sustained aconflict like this.

  Gradually my pains subsided, and I fell into a deep sleep. I was visitedby dreams of a thousand hues. They led me to flowing streams andplenteous banquets, which, though placed within my view, some powerforbade me to approach. From this sleep I recovered to the fruition ofsolitude and darkness, but my frame was in a state less feeble thanbefore That which I had eaten had produced temporary distress, but onthe whole had been of use. If this food had not been provided for me Ishould scarcely have avoided death. I had reason, therefore, tocongratulate myself on the danger that had lately occurred.

  I had acted without foresight, and yet no wisdom could have prescribedmore salutary measures. The panther was slain, not from a view to therelief of my hunger, but from the self-preserving and involuntaryimpulse. Had I foreknown the pangs to which my ravenous and bloody mealwould give birth, I should have carefully abstained; and yet these pangswere a useful effort of nature to subdue and convert to nourishment thematter I had swallowed.

  I was now assailed by the torments of thirst. My invention and mycourage were anew bent to obviate this pressing evil. I reflected thatthere was some recess from this cavern, even from the spot where I nowstood. Before, I was doubtful whether in this direction from this pitany avenue could be found; but, since the panther had come hither, therewas reason to suppose the existence of some such avenue.

  I now likewise attended to a sound, which, from its invariable tenor,denoted somewhat different from the whistling of a gale. It seemed likethe murmur of a running stream. I now prepared to go forward andendeavour to move along in that direction in which this sound apparentlycame.

  On either side, and above my head, there was nothing but vacuity. Mysteps were to be guided by the pavement, which, though unequal andrugged, appeared, on the whole, to ascend. My safety required that Ishould employ both hands and feet in exploring my way.

  I went on thus for a considerable period. The murmur, instead ofbecoming more distinct, gradually died away. My progress was arrested byfatigue, and I began once more to despond. My exertions produced aperspiration, which, while it augmented my thirst, happily supplied mewith imperfect means of appeasing it.

  This expedient would, perhaps, have been accidentally suggested; but myingenuity was assisted by remembering the history of certain Englishprisoners in Bengal, whom their merciless enemy imprisoned in a smallroom, and some of whom preserved themselves alive merely by swallowingthe moisture that flowed from their bodies. This experiment I nowperformed with no less success.

  This was slender arid transitory consolation. I knew that, wandering atrandom, I might never reach the outlet of this cavern, or might bedisabled, by hunger and fatigue, from going farther than the outlet. Thecravings which had lately been satiated would speedily return, and mynegligence had cut me off from the resource which had recently beenfurnished. I thought not till now that a second meal might beindispensable.

  To return upon my footsteps to the spot where the dead animal lay was aheartless project. I might thus be placing myself at a hopeless distancefrom liberty. Besides, my track could not be retraced. I had frequentlydeviated from a straight direction for the sake of avoiding impediments.All of which I was sensible was, that I was travelling up an irregularacclivity. I hoped some time to reach the summit, but had no reason foradhering to one line of ascent in preference to another.

  To remain where I was was manifestly absurd. Whether I mounted ordescended, a change of place was most likely to benefit me. I resolvedto vary my direction, and, instead of ascending, keep along the side ofwhat I accounted a hill. I had gone some hundred feet when the murmur,before described, once more saluted my ear.

  This sound, being imagined to proceed from a running stream, could notbut light up joy in the heart of one nearly perishing with thirst. Iproceeded with new courage. The sound approached no nearer, nor becamemore distinct; but, as long as it died not away, I was satisfied tolisten and to hope.

  I was eagerly observant if any the least glimmering of light shouldvisit this recess. At length, on the right hand, a gleam, infinitelyfaint, caught my attention. It was wavering and unequal. I directed mysteps towards it. It became more vivid and permanent. It was of thatkind, however, which proceeded from a fire, kindled with dry sticks, andnot from the sun. I now heard the crackling of flames.

  This sound made me pause, or, at least, to proceed with circumspection.At length the scene opened, and I found myself at the entrance of acave. I quickly reached a station, when I saw a fire burning. At firstno other object was noted, but it was easy to infer that the fire waskindled by men, and that they who kindled it could be at no greatdistance.