midnight
He had eaten all the beef , but there was bread and water sufficient to last , by economy , for two or three days to come . It was not the pang of hunger then , but a nightmare originating in his mysterious incarceration , which appalled him . All through the long hours of this particular night , the sense of being masoned up in the wall , grew , and grew , and grew upon him , till again and again he lifted himself convulsively from the floor , as if vast blocks of stone had been laid on him ; as if he had been digging a deep well , and the stonework with all the excavated earth had caved in upon him , where he burrowed ninety feet beneath the clover . In the blind tomb of the midnight he stretched his two arms sideways , and felt as if coffined at not being able to extend them straight out , on opposite sides , for the narrowness of the cell . He seated himself against one side of the wall , crosswise with the cell , and pushed with his feet at the opposite wall . But still mindful of his promise in this extremity , he uttered no cry . He mutely raved in the darkness .