What, then, was there left to do?
Ah, there was but one course; he knew it well--he must put out his hand and find that thing! It was easy to think this; but it was hard to brace himself up to try it.
Three times he stretched his hand a little way out into the dark, gingerly; and snatched it suddenly back, with a gasp--not because it had encountered anything, but because he had felt so sure it was just GOING to.

But the fourth time, he groped a little further, and his hand lightly swept against something soft and warm.

This petrified him, nearly, with fright; his mind was in such a state that he could imagine the thing to be nothing else than a corpse, newly dead and still warm.
He thought he would rather die than touch it again.

But he thought this false thought because he did not know the immortal strength of human curiosity.

In no long time his hand was tremblingly groping again -- against his judgment, and without his consent--but groping persistently on, just the same.