The cutting was extremely deep, and unusually precipitate. It was made
through a clammy stone that became oozier and wetter as I went down.
For these reasons, I found the way long enough to give me time to recall
a singular air of reluctance or compulsion with which he had pointed
out the path.
When I came down low enough upon the zigzag descent to see him again,
I saw that he was standing between the rails on the way by which the
train had lately passed, in an attitude as if he were waiting for me
to appear. He had his left hand at his chin, and that left elbow rested
on his right hand crossed over his breast. His attitude was one of such
expectation and watchfulness, that I stopped a moment, wondering at it.
I resumed my downward way, and, stepping out upon the level of the
railroad and drawing nearer to him, saw that he was a dark, sallow man,
with a dark beard and rather heavy eyebrows. His post was in as solitary
and dismal a place as ever I saw. On either side, a dripping-wet wall
of jagged stone, excluding all view but a strip of sky: the perspective
one way, only a crooked prolongation of this great dungeon; the shorter
perspective in the other direction, terminating in a gloomy red light,
and the gloomier entrance to a black tunnel, in whose massive
architecture there was a barbarous, depressing, and forbidding air.
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