THE TOWER-MOUNTAIN.
BY GUSTAVUS FRANKENSTEIN.
III.
I wandered about for what seemed to me days and days, but always
cautiously, and never without some hope of escape. At length, becoming
weak, I suppose, I missed my footing from a ledge of rock and fell to a
great distance. I was stunned and bruised, but soon recovered; and
considering the course I must have come, and this last terrible
descent, I felt almost sure that I was far below the surface of the
earth, and that I must try to go up, and must search and search until I
should find some way of ascending. I accordingly moved on, with greater
care than ever, and soon found that I was in a sort of rocky passage
which rose at a slight inclination. I need not say how this discovery
revived my spirits, nor how I was cheered yet more when, after a time,
I came to a level surface again, and discovered that beyond it the
passage continued as before, but much widened.
Keeping close to the wall of rock on my right, I slowly ascended in
what seemed to me a spiral curve. Sometimes I would take a step to the
left, to ascertain if I still had a barrier on that side; by which I
found that there were many openings in the wall on that side, probably
similar to the one through which I had reached this apparently
continuous passage.
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