He closed his eyes--the light, faint as it was, pained his long unconscious sight--and yielded himself again to that passive state of immovability to which he seemed reduced.
He lay for some time in this manner, memory and consciousness working their way by dull degrees within his soul. There was a profound stillness reigning round him, which induced the drowsiness of exhaustion, and he was relapsing into a half wakeful dose, when the rumbling of carriage-wheels broke faintly on the silence; and soon after, a confused movement in the house more effectually, but still vaguely aroused his attention. Then followed the hushed sound of human voices; and one, raised above all others, in a terrible, but, as it were, quickly stifled shriek, caused him fearfully to start up in a sitting posture upon the bed.
He heard no other sound but that of a door being closed and fastened heavily, and, as it seemed, at no great distance from his own. Yet at the same moment, as by an instinctive sympathy with the ideas suggested in his mind, he tried to move his arms once more. Still they resisted every freedom of action. He struggled--he looked--he felt what a cold, leaden power it was, that thus constrained them, and strength seemed to return as fiercely. The unfortunate Eustace struggled to tear his wrists asunder. But no--more than the strength of a stronger man than he was needed to tear away those bonds; for it was under no mere physical weakness, but bonds of iron, against which he had to contend, and his efforts served but to gall and bruise the limbs they encircled.
Eustace gazed around him. His eyes fixed upon the grated window, and a look of indescribable horror stole over that fine but emaciated countenance. He tried to put his feet to the ground, and found them too strongly bound together; but still he managed to move them from the bed upon the floor, and thus he sat, and again gazed round his prison walls.
Suddenly a man appeared by his side. The captive--for such he might be called--met the firm, peculiar regard this person fixed upon him, with the full, clear glance of his powerful dark eyes; then looking down at the chains which bound him, said in a tone of earnest, but composed inquiry: