=== apom_ch18_pt5 === 

So, with the cunning of a madman, I backed into the far corner of my cell when next I heard him approaching and gathering a little slack of the great chain which held me in my hand I waited his coming, crouching like some beast of prey.  As he stooped to place my food upon the ground I swung the chain above my head and crashed the links with all my strength upon his skull.  Without a sound he slipped to the floor, stone dead. =

Laughing and chattering like the idiot I was fast becoming I fell upon his prostrate form my fingers feeling for his dead throat. Presently they came in contact with a small chain at the end of which dangled a number of keys.  The touch of my fingers on these keys brought back my reason with the suddenness of thought.  No longer was I a jibbering idiot, but a sane, reasoning man with the means of escape within my very hands. =

As I was groping to remove the chain from about my victims neck I glanced up into the darkness to see six pairs of gleaming eyes fixed, unwinking, upon me.  Slowly they approached and slowly I shrank back from the awful horror of them.  Back into my corner I crouched holding my hands palms out, before me, and stealthily on came the awful eyes until they reached the dead body at my feet. Then slowly they retreated but this time with a strange grating sound and finally they disappeared in some black and distant recess of my dungeon. = 

=== end of pt5 ===