It was
monstrous! He sat up and glared into the black darkness. He talked
to himself, he talked to the world outside, to the universe which
had forgotten his existence. He stormed, he wept. He got on his feet
and flung himself about the cell, which was six feet square, and
barely tall enough for him to stand erect. He pounded on the door
with his one hand which Guffey had not lamed, he kicked, and he
shouted. But there was no answer, and so far as he could tell, there
was no one to hear.
When he had exhausted himself, he sank down, and fell into a haunted
sleep; and then he wakened again, to a reality worse than any
nightmare. That awful man was coming after him again! He was going
to torture him, to make him tell what he did not know! All the ogres
and all the demons that had ever been invented to frighten the
imagination of children were as nothing compared to the image of the
man called Guffey, as Peter thought of him.
Several ages after Peter had been locked up, he heard sounds
outside, and the door was opened. Peter was cowering in the corner,
thinking that Guffey had come. There was a scraping on the floor,
and then the door was banged again, and silence fell. Peter
investigated and discovered that they had put in a chunk of bread
and a pan of water.
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