water into my boiler, while I am letting off steam?"

But I was now too far gone to feel the absurdity of this, or his other
exclamations. I was sinking deeper and deeper into a pit of unutterable
agony and despair. For, although I was not conscious of real pain in any
part of my body, the cruel tension to which my nerves had been subjected
filled me through and through with a sensation of distress which was far
more severe than pain itself. In addition to this, the remnant of will
with which I struggled against the demon, became gradually weaker, and I
felt that I should soon be powerless in his hands. Every effort to
preserve my reason was accompanied by a pang of mortal fear, lest what I
now experienced was insanity, and would hold mastery over me for ever. The
thought of death, which also haunted me, was far less bitter than this
dread. I knew that in the struggle which was going on in my frame, I was
borne fearfully near the dark gulf, and the thought that, at such a time,
both reason and will were leaving my brain, filled me with an agony, the
depth and blackness of which I should vainly attempt to portray. I threw
myself on my bed, with the excited blood still roaring wildly in my ears,
my heart throbbing with a force that seemed to be rapidly wearing away my
life, my throat dry as a pot-sherd, and my stiffened tongue cleaving to
the roof of my mouth--resisting no longer, but awaiting my fate with the
apathy of despair.

My companion was now approaching the same condition, but as the effect of
the drug on him had been less violent, so his stage of suffering was more
clamorous. He cried out to me that he was dying, implored me to help him,
and reproached me vehemently, because I lay there silent, motionless, and
apparently careless of his danger. "Why will he disturb me?" I thought;
"he thinks he is dying, but what is death to madness? Let him die; a
thousand deaths were more easily borne than the pangs I suffer." While I