It was a tinder-box. I clutched it softly, and as softly drew myself
upright again. Could I dare to strike a light? The overturned
table: What could be the meaning of it? It could not have been
overturned by Captain Coffin? By whom then? Some one must have
visited the lodgings in his absence.

Some one, for aught I knew, was in the room at this moment!--
Some one, back there against the wall, waiting only for me to strike
a light! I declare that at the thought I came near to screaming
aloud, casting the tinder-box from me and rushing out blindly into
the court.

I dare say that I stood for a couple of minutes, motionless,
listening not with my ears only but with every hair of my head.
Nevertheless, my wits must have been working somehow; for my first
action, when I plucked up nerve enough for it, was an entirely
sensible one. I set the tinder-box on the floor between my heels,
felt for the table, and righted it; then, picking up the box again,
set it on the table and twisted off the lid. I found flint and steel
at once, dipped my fingers into the box to make sure of the tinder
and the brimstone matches, and so, after another pause to listen,
essayed to strike out the spark.

This, for a pair of trembling hands, proved no easy business, and at
first promised to be a hopeless one. But the worst moment arrived
when, the spark struck, I stooped to blow it upon the tinder, the
glow of which must light up my own face while it revealed to me
nothing of the surrounding darkness. Still, it had to be done; and,
keeping a tight hold on what little remained of my courage, I thrust
in the match and ignited it.