There was no doubt about it. I could hear the water now sucking at its
dark sides. I stepped down the bank, and waded up to my knees in the
icy water to meet it. It was a plain box, with no writing upon the lid,
nor any speck of metal to relieve the dead black: and it moved with the
same even speed straight up to where I stood.
As it came, I laid my hand upon it and touched wood. But with the touch
came a further sensation that made me fling both arms around the box and
begin frantically to haul it towards the shore.
It was a feeling of suffocation; of a weight that pressed in upon my
ribs and choked the lungs' action. I felt that I must open that box or
die horribly; that until I had it upon the bank and had forced the lid
up I should know no pause from the labour and torture of dying.
This put a wild strength into me. As the box grated upon the few
pebbles by the shore, I bent over it, caught it once more by the sides,
and with infinite effort dragged it up out of the water. It was heavy,
and the weight upon my chest was heavier yet: but straining, panting,
gasping, I hauled it up the bank, dropped it on the turf, and knelt over
it, tugging furiously at the lid.
I was frenzied--no less.
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