Part 76

I never did much work myself. I was as willing as Barkis; but I had little skill in that species of practical engineering, and was so much excelled by my companions in captivity that I did not insist on performing my share of the labor. So many of our tunnels had exploded, as we used to style it, that the authorities put on double lines of sentinels, compelling us to carry a tunnel so far that the obtainment of oxygen became impossible. Sixty or seventy feet, or even eighty or ninety, may be managed; but one hundred and forty or fifty feet cannot be accomplished without a ventilating apparatus, and at Salisbury we were absolutely without implements of any kind. It was quite common there for our custodians to draw us up in a line, and compel us to surrender, not only our valuables, on pretence that we might bribe the guards, but also our pocket-knives, and anything that might in any way aid us in our liberation. Old scraps of iron, and whatever might be converted into a sharp instrument, were, therefore, in active demand, and the supply entirely inadequate. I recollect that I was hailed with joy, on a certain afternoon, when I exhibited an ancient case-knife that I had contrived to conceal, and which not the neediest rag-picker in Paris could be persuaded to throw into his basket.

How the poor unfortunates at Salisbury did toil at tunnels, and how perverse fortune always proved! I make no question that scores of the captives, at the rate of three dollars a day, would have earned hundreds of dollars each in digging, and all, alas! to no purpose. The fabled industry of the Trojans was not to be compared to theirs. No sooner was one tunnel discovered than they set about making another, and when that blew up, they turned to a third, and a fourth, and a fifth, and a sixth, as if they were incapable of discouragement. Hope springs eternal in the human breast, especially when the human breast is famishing by slow degrees, and freedom smiles never so faintly in the far-off distance.

[Sidenote: SEVERE LABOR IN TUNNELS.]

If there be any severer labor than tunnelling, I am unacquainted with it. The first time I became a digger was on a hot summer day. Armed with an ordinary jack-knife, the blade of which was broken, I attacked the firm earth, and, for nearly two hours and a half, strove, like Hercules, against one of the original elements. The work would have been nothing in the open air, even with the noonday sun blazing down; but in that narrow, underground channel, where half a respiration was impossible, every movement of the muscles, every throb of the pulses, every beat of the heart, resembled a spasm, and the slightest exertion appeared like the greatest. The perspiration started from all my pores, my head ached, my lungs grew painful, my breath became hot and stertorous. The man behind me, who was engaged in removing the dirt, insisted on my stopping, saying that I was overworking, and that an hour at a time was quite as much as anybody ought to endure.

I would not heed him. My opposition was aroused, the spirit of the perverse was prompting me. I had determined to stay there and toil as long as I could move my hands, or catch a breath. I went beyond my resolution. I dug and dug, and after a while the sense of semi-suffocation and the pain in my breast seemed to cease. My head appeared to be on fire; the little candle I had before me shone as a calcium light. I fancied that I was inspired, that I could never be fatigued, and I wrought feverishly, but effectually, until my assistant wondered at the amount of earth he was obliged to carry off. I imagined that hours and days had passed. While I was delving energetically, though wildly, I lost consciousness, and chaos and oblivion came. I knew nothing more until I found myself stretched on a blanket, and my faithful Achates—noble fellow that he was—bathing my face, chafing my temples, and wondering if I should ever revive.

[Sidenote: NARROW ESCAPE FROM SUFFOCATION.]

Then I learned that I had swooned, and been dragged out of the tunnel by the feet—more dead than alive. The fever of delirium had seized me, and this I had mistaken for inexhaustible strength. Unquestionably I had been very near my end. If I had been allowed to remain there five minutes longer, I should have been thrown into the trench near the prison where so many poor fellows had gone before me, and have furnished the theme for a brief obituary.

Give me liberty or give me death! has become a stereotyped phrase. It is impossible to tell which is the better of the two; but I came much nearer gaining one than the other in the tunnel, which I had before associated only with the former.

[Sidenote: HOPE AND DISAPPOINTMENTS.]

When next I am thrown into prison—I do not believe it will be in my own country—I trust I shall have the means for constructing tunnels after an approved manner, and that they will not continue to balk my desires, and cheat my expectations. Tunnels, I must confess, have treated me shamefully. Again and again I have built high thoughts upon them; again and again I have placed implicit faith in them; again and again I have crowned their issue with the glorious symbol of freedom; and yet while they kept the word of promise to my ear, they broke it to my hope. Among perfidies they have been most perfidious, among treacheries the most treacherous, among disappointments the most disappointing, among deceits the most deceitful. For nearly two wretched, painful, terrible years, I thought of tunnels kindly, advocated them warmly, loved them tenderly, labored for them, in them, through them; and still in the hour of my direst need, and in the mightiest peril of my being, they refused me comfort, gave me despair for bread. I never shall forget—I never can forget—that when freedom dawned at last, it was through the darkened sky overhead, and not through the opened end of a channel under ground.

┌───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ Transcriber’s Note: │ │ │ │ The original spelling, hyphenation, and punctuation have been │ │ retained, with the exception of apparent typographical errors │ │ which have been corrected without note. │ │ │ │ Ambiguous hyphens at the ends of lines were retained. │ │ │ │ Punctuation and spelling were made consistent when a predominant │ │ form was found in this book; otherwise they were not changed. │ │ │ │ Italicized words are surrounded by underline characters, _like │ │ this_. │ │ │ │ Mid-paragraph illustrations have been moved between paragraphs │ │ and some illustrations have been moved closer to the text that │ │ references them. The List of Illustrations paginations were │ │ changed accordingly. │ │ │ │ Variant not changed: │ │ Gentlemens and gentlemans. │ └───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘