there were in the cell, a chair, a table, and a straw mattress. as the gaoler made a general inspection of these objects, and of the four walls, before going out, a wandering fancy wandered through the mind of the prisoner leaning against the wall opposite to him, that this gaoler was so unwholesomely bloated, both in face and person, as to look like a man who had been drowned and filled with water. when the gaoler was gone, he thought in the same wandering way, "now am i left, as if i were dead." stopping then, to look down at the mattress, he turned from it with a sick feeling, and thought, "and here in these crawling creatures is the first condition of the body after death."