chance has revealed to me. To discover it, would be to kill Professor
Liedenbrock! Let him find it out himself if he can. I will never have
it laid to my door that I led him to his destruction."

Having formed this resolution, I folded my arms and waited. But I had
not reckoned upon one little incident which turned up a few hours
after.

When our good Martha wanted to go to Market, she found the door
locked. The big key was gone. Who could have taken it out? Assuredly,
it was my uncle, when he returned the night before from his hurried
walk.

Was this done on purpose? Or was it a mistake? Did he want to reduce
us by famine? This seemed like going rather too far! What! should
Martha and I be victims of a position of things in which we had not
the smallest interest? It was a fact that a few years before this,
whilst my uncle was working at his great classification of minerals,
he was forty-eight hours without eating, and all his household were
obliged to share in this scientific fast. As for me, what I remember
is, that I got severe cramps in my stomach, which hardly suited the
constitution of a hungry, growing lad.

Now it appeared to me as if breakfast was going to be wanting, just
as supper had been the night before. Yet I resolved to be a hero, and
not to be conquered by the pangs of hunger. Martha took it very
seriously, and, poor woman, was very much distressed. As for me, the
impossibility of leaving the house distressed me a good deal more,
and for a very good reason. A caged lover's feelings may easily be
imagined.