A quarter of an inch more, an eighth of an inch even, and there would have been no awakening.

He closed his eyes for a few moments, and when he opened them his vision had gained distance.

About him he made out indistinctly the black encompassing walls of his prison.
It seemed an interminable time before he could rise and stand on his feet and reach the candle.

Slowly he felt his way along the wall until he came to a low, heavy door, barred from the outside, and just beyond this door he found a narrow aperture cut through the decaying logs.

It was a yard in length and barely wide enough for him to thrust through an arm.