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21 - The Death of the Curate - The War of the Worlds - H G Wells · Daily Classic Sci Fi Books

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  Speaker 1: Chapter four, The Death of the Curate. It was on
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  Speaker 1: the sixth day of our imprisonment that I peeped for
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  Speaker 1: the last time and presently found myself alone. Instead of
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  Speaker 1: keeping close to me and trying to oust me from
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  Speaker 1: the slit, the Curate had gone back into the scullery.
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  Speaker 1: I was struck by a sudden thought. I went back
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  Speaker 1: quickly and quietly into the scullery. In the darkness, I
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  Speaker 1: heard the curate drinking. I snatched in the darkness, and
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  Speaker 1: my fingers caught a bottle of Burgundy. For a few minutes,
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  Speaker 1: there was a tussle. The bottle struck the floor and broke,
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  Speaker 1: and I desisted and rose. We stood, panting and threatening
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  Speaker 1: each other. In the end, I planted myself between him
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  Speaker 1: and the food and told him of my determination to
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  Speaker 1: begin a discipline. I divided the food in the pantry
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  Speaker 1: into rations to last us ten days. I would not
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  Speaker 1: let him eat any more. That day, in the afternoon
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  Speaker 1: he made a feeble attempt to get at the food.
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  Speaker 1: I had been dozing, but in an instant I was awake.
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  Speaker 1: All day and all night we sat face to face,
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  Speaker 1: I weary but resolute, and he weeping and complaining of
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  Speaker 1: his immediate hunger. It was, I know, a night and
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  Speaker 1: a day, but to me it seemed it seems now
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  Speaker 1: an interminable length of time. And so our widened incompatibility
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  Speaker 1: ended at last in open conflict. The two vast days
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  Speaker 1: we struggled in undertones and wrestling contests. There were times
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  Speaker 1: when I beat and kicked him madly, times when I
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  Speaker 1: cajoled and persuaded him, and once I tried to bribe
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  Speaker 1: him with the last bottle of Burgundy, for there was
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  Speaker 1: a rain water pump from which I could get water.
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  Speaker 1: But neither force nor kindness availed. He was indeed beyond reason.
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  Speaker 1: He would neither desist from his attacks on the food,
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  Speaker 1: nor from his noisy babbling to himself. The rudimentary precautions
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  Speaker 1: to keep our imprisonment endurable he would not observe. Slowly,
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  Speaker 1: I began to realize the complete overthrow of his intelligence,
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  Speaker 1: to perceive that my sole companion in this close and
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  Speaker 1: sickly darkness was a man insane. From certain vague memories
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  Speaker 1: I am inclined to think. My own mind wandered at times.
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  Speaker 1: I had strange and hideous dreams. Whenever I slept. It
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  Speaker 1: sounds paradoxical, but I am inclined to think that. The
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  Speaker 1: weakness and insanity of the curate warned me, braced me,
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  Speaker 1: and kept me a sane man. On the eighth day,
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  Speaker 1: he began to talk aloud instead of whispering, and nothing
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  Speaker 1: I could do would moderate his speech. It is just
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  Speaker 1: o God, he would say, over and over again. It
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  Speaker 1: is just on me and mine be the punishment laid.
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  Speaker 1: We have sinned, we have fallen short. There was poverty, sorrow,
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  Speaker 1: the poor were trodden in the dust, and I held
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  Speaker 1: my peace. I preached acceptable folly, My God, what folly
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  Speaker 1: when I should have stood up, though I died for it,
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  Speaker 1: and called upon them to repent, repent oppressors of the
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  Speaker 1: poor and needy, the wine press of God. Then he
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  Speaker 1: would suddenly revert to the matter of the food. I
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  Speaker 1: withheld from him, praying, begging, weeping. At last, threatening, he
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  Speaker 1: began to raise his voice. I prayed him not to.
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  Speaker 1: He perceived a hold on me. He threatened he would
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  Speaker 1: shout and bring the Martians upon us. For a time.
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  Speaker 1: That scared me, but any concession would have shortened our
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  Speaker 1: chance of escape. Beyond estimating, I defy him, although I
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  Speaker 1: felt no assurance that he might not do this thing,
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  Speaker 1: but that day, at any rate, he did not. He
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  Speaker 1: talked with his voice rising slowly through the greater part
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  Speaker 1: of the eighth and ninth days, threats entreaties, mingled with
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  Speaker 1: a torrent of half sane and always frothy repentance for
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  Speaker 1: his vacant sham of God's service, such as made me
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  Speaker 1: pity him. Then he slept awhile and began again with
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  Speaker 1: renewed strength, so loudly that I must needs make him desist.
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  Speaker 1: Be still, I implored. He rose to his knees, for
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  Speaker 1: he had been sitting in the darkness near the copper.
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  Speaker 1: I have been still too long, he said, in a
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  Speaker 1: tone that must have reached the pit. And now I
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  Speaker 1: must bear my witness. Woe unto this unfaithful city, Woe, woe, woe, woe,
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  Speaker 1: woe to the inhabitants of the earth. By reason of
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  Speaker 1: the other voices of the trumpet. Shut up, I said,
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  Speaker 1: rising to my feet, and in a terror, lest the
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  Speaker 1: martians should hear us. For God's sake, nay, shouted the
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  Speaker 1: curate at the top of his voice, standing likewise and
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  Speaker 1: extending his arms, speak the word of the Lord is
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  Speaker 1: upon me in three strides. He was at the door
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  Speaker 1: leading into the kitchen. I must bear my witness. I go.
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  Speaker 1: It has already been too long delayed. I put out
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  Speaker 1: my hand and felt the meat chopper hanging to the wall.
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  Speaker 1: In a flash, I was after him. I was fierce
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  Speaker 1: with fear. Before he was half way across the kitchen,
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  Speaker 1: I had overtaken him. With one last touch of humanity,
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  Speaker 1: I turned the blade back and struck him with the butt.
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  Speaker 1: He went headlong forward and lay stretched on the ground.
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  Speaker 1: I stumbled over him and stood panting. He lay still.
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  Speaker 1: Suddenly I heard a noise without the run and smash
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  Speaker 1: of slipping plaster, and the triangular aperture in the wall
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  Speaker 1: was darkened. I looked up and saw the lower surface
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  Speaker 1: for handling machine coming slowly across the hole. One of
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  Speaker 1: its gripping limbs curled amid the debris. Another limb appeared,
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  Speaker 1: feeling its way over the fallen beams. I stood petrified, staring.
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  Speaker 1: Then I saw through a sort of glass plate near
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  Speaker 1: the edge of the body, the face as we may
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  Speaker 1: call it, and the large dark eyes of a martian peering.
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  Speaker 1: And then a long metallic snake of tentacle came feeling
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  Speaker 1: slowly through the hole. I turned by an effort, stumbled
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  Speaker 1: over the curate, and stopped at the scullery door. The
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  Speaker 1: tentacle was now some way two yards or more in
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  Speaker 1: the room, and twisting and turning with were sudden movements
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  Speaker 1: this way and that. For a while I stood fascinated
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  Speaker 1: by that slow, fitful advance. Then with a faint, hoarse cry,
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  Speaker 1: I forced myself across the scullery. I trembled violently, I
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  Speaker 1: could scarcely stand upright. I opened the door of the
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  Speaker 1: coal cellar and stood there in the darkness, staring at
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  Speaker 1: the faintly lit doorway into the kitchen and listening. Had
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  Speaker 1: the Martian seen me? What was it doing? Now? Something
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  Speaker 1: was moving to and fro there, very quietly. Every now
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  Speaker 1: and then it tapped against the wall or started on
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  Speaker 1: its movements with a faint metallic ringing like the movements
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  Speaker 1: of keys on a split ring. Then a heavy body.
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  Speaker 1: I knew too well what was dragged across the floor
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  Speaker 1: of the kitchen towards the opening. Irresistibly attracted. I crept
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  Speaker 1: to the door and peeped into the kitchen. In the
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  Speaker 1: triangle of bright outer sunlight, I saw the Martian in
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  Speaker 1: its briarius of a handling machine, scrutinizing the curate's head.
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  Speaker 1: I thought at once that it would infer my presence
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  Speaker 1: from the mark of the blow I had given him.
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  Speaker 1: I crept back to the coal cellar, shut the door,
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  Speaker 1: and began to cover myself up as much as I could,
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  Speaker 1: and as noiselessly as possible in the darkness amid the
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  Speaker 1: firewood and coal therein. Every now and then I paused,
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  Speaker 1: rigid to hear if the Martian had thrust its tentacles
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  Speaker 1: through the opening again. Then the faint metallic jingle returned.
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  Speaker 1: I traced it slowly, feeling over the kitchen. Presently I
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  Speaker 1: heard it nearer in the scullery. As I judged, I
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  Speaker 1: thought that its length might be insufficient to reach me.
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  Speaker 1: I prayed copiously. It passed, scraping faintly across the cellar door,
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  Speaker 1: an aide which of almost intolerable suspense intervened. Then I
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  Speaker 1: heard it fumbling at the latch. It had found the door.
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  Speaker 1: The Martians understood doors. It worried at the catch for
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  Speaker 1: a minute perhaps, and then the door opened. In the darkness,
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  Speaker 1: I could just see the thing like an elephant's trunk,
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  Speaker 1: more than anything else, waving towards me and touching and
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  Speaker 1: examining the wall, coals, wood, and ceiling. It was like
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  Speaker 1: a black worm, swaying its blind head to and fro.
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  Speaker 1: Once even it touched the heel of my boot. I
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  Speaker 1: was on the verge of screaming. I bit my hand.
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  Speaker 1: For a time, the tentacle was silent. I could have
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  Speaker 1: fancied it had been withdrawn. Presently, with an abrupt click,
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  Speaker 1: it gripped something I thought it had me, and seemed
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  Speaker 1: to go out of the cellar again. For a minute,
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  Speaker 1: I was not. Apparently it had taken a lump of
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  Speaker 1: coal to examine. I seized the opportunity of slightly shifting
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  Speaker 1: my position, which had become cramped, and then listened. I
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  Speaker 1: whispered passionate prayers for safety. Then I heard the slow,
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  Speaker 1: deliberate sound creeping towards me again, slowly, slowly, it drew near,
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  Speaker 1: scratching against the walls and tapping the furniture. While I
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  Speaker 1: was still doubtful, it rapped smartly against the cellar door
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  Speaker 1: and closed it. I heard it go into the pantry,
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  Speaker 1: and the biscuit tins rattled, and a bottle smashed, and
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  Speaker 1: then came a heavy bump against the cellar door, then
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  Speaker 1: silence that passed into an infinity of suspense. Had it
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  Speaker 1: gone at last? I decided that it had it came
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  Speaker 1: into the scullery no more, but I lay all the
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  Speaker 1: tenth day in the close darkness, buried among coals and firewood,
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  Speaker 1: not daring even to crawl out for the drink for
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  Speaker 1: which I craved. It was the eleventh day before I
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  Speaker 1: ventured so far from my security end of Section twenty
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  Speaker 1: one