ray of comfort came in the two beliefs that his flashing matches
frightened them, and that, for certain portions of the way,
well-regulated droves of the vermin had districts assigned them; those
that ventured in chase of him too far were beaten back by those on whose
grounds they rashly trespassed.

This latter consolation was lost almost at the same time as the other:
his stock of fuses ran out, while with the last flash he feared that he
saw a larger mass than ever before in his track. The rats had united to
overwhelm him.

Seized with panic, spite of his philosophy, dropping the all but empty
wax-light case in his haste, he dashed madly forward, groping to save
his head and shoulders from contact with the capacious gallery sides,
but unable to take a step with any certainty how it would end.
Fortunately, he had strayed back into an often-traveled path, and while
the scamper of the rats died away at the close of his frantic race, he
heard a sound but little above his level revealing the presence of man.
It was not a cheerful sound; being the tolling of a bell such as is
swung when a dead body is entering a cemetery, is carried to the chapel
before interment.

Nevertheless, fellow beings would be near and he had only to find the
opening by which this burial-ground could be reached. He remembered that
the old cemetery had been immensely extended, if the guide-books were to
be credited, and, while he had no clear idea of the direction he had
rambled, he might have reached the town of twenty thousand dead. The
idea was gruesome of having to call for the aid of a grave-digger, but
he felt that he could not much longer support this journey in the
underworld without the bodily support of food or the mental one of human