Explore "The Lake of Wine" by Bernard Capes on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
When upon the poor gentleman, starved and re-fettered, descended once more the sick loneliness of confinement, he assured himself that only a little time now was needed to see the quenching of his last spark of reason. He was so exhausted and unstrung -- so doubly weakened by this latest wanton cantrip of Fortune, as to feel that the spirit of venture, fluttering within him on a broken wing, was physically incapable at last of the least independence of action. He looked upon himself as one who, having half raised a fallen treasure from a near-inaccessible ledge, has let it slip out of pure carelessness into the abyss; and so regarding his folly, he was miserably ready, like the born gambler he was, to cry Kismet! over his punishment.
The girl it was concerned him most -- prominently for her own sake, but also because he might not guess what her seizure betokened, or what weak defences had made the fact of it possible. About her condition, or her safety in the midst of these lawless ruffians, his brain was too worn to speculate; but at least he could understand that the purpose for which she was held would not be allowed to perish upon itself of inaction.