Several ages after Peter had been locked up, he heard sounds
outside, and the door was opened. Peter was cowering in the corner,
thinking that Guffey had come. There was a scraping on the floor,
and then the door was banged again, and silence fell. Peter
investigated and discovered that they had put in a chunk of bread
and a pan of water.

Then more ages passed, and Peter's impotent ragings were repeated;
then once more they brought bread and water, and Peter wondered, was
it twice a day they brought it, or was this a new day? And how long
did they mean to keep him here? Did they mean to drive him mad? He
asked these questions of the man who brought the bread and water,
but the man made no answer, he never at any time spoke a word. Peter
had no company in that "hole" but his God; and Peter was not well
acquainted with his God, and did not enjoy a tete-a-tete with Him.

What troubled Peter most was the cold; it got into his bones, and
his teeth were chattering all the time. Despite all his moving
about, he could not keep warm. When the man opened the door, he
cried out to him, begging for a blanket; each time the man came,
Peter begged more frantically than ever. He was ill, he had been
injured in the explosion, he needed a doctor, he was going to die!
But there was never any answer. Peter would lie there and shiver and
weep, and writhe, and babble, and lose consciousness for a while,
and not know whether he was awake or asleep, whether he was living
or dead. He was becoming delirious, and the things that were
happening to him, the people who were tormenting him, became
monsters and fiends who carried him away upon far journeys, and
plunged him thru abysses of terror and torment.