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arrest an avalanche!
Down--still unceasingly--still inevitably down! I gasped and struggled
at each vibration. I shrunk convulsively at its every sweep. My eyes
followed its outward or upward whirls with the eagerness of the most
unmeaning despair; they closed themselves spasmodically at the descent,
although death would have been a relief, oh! how unspeakable! Still I
quivered in every nerve to think how slight a sinking of the machinery
would precipitate that keen, glistening axe upon my bosom. It was hope
that prompted the nerve to quiver--the frame to shrink. It was hope--the
hope that triumphs on the rack--that whispers to the death-condemned
even in the dungeons of the Inquisition.
I saw that some ten or twelve vibrations would bring the steel in actual
contact with my robe, and with this observation there suddenly came over
my spirit all the keen, collected calmness of despair. For the first
time during many hours--or perhaps days--I thought. It now occurred to
me that the bandage, or surcingle, which enveloped me, was unique. I
was tied by no separate cord. The first stroke of the razorlike crescent
athwart any portion of the band, would so detach it that it might be
unwound from my person by means of my left hand. But how fearful, in
that case, the proximity of the steel! The result of the slightest
struggle how deadly! Was it likely, moreover, that the minions of the
torturer had not foreseen and provided for this possibility! Was it
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