On what flimsy bases the best plant of wise men too often rest! The latest power of nature had been harnessed to do man service in his utmost extremity; science had perfected its instruments, but one link in the chain was fallible man.

The bell would tinkle--the watcher would be laughing out of earshot--and the life would sink back into Lethe after swimming to the shore! The student sighed as he ate the piece of bread broken off a small loaf and drank from the bottle out of which the faithless turnkey hobnobbed with the sexton, the undertaker's men and the hearse-coachman.
If the bell should ring, with him alone to hear, ought he hasten out by the gate providentially open, and leave for the care of heaven alone the unknown wretch who would have summoned his brother-Christians most uselessly?
The resuscitated man would not be "of his parish," since he was a wanderer from afar.

Let the natives bury their own dead! At this instant, when philosophy pointed out to the student the unbarred portals, the bell in the midst of the row rang clearly if not very loudly.

It sounded in his ear like the last trump.

Could he doubt that this appeal was to him exclusively?
The removal of the custodian, his own miraculous escape--all pointed to this conclusion.
But might he not run out and, if he saw the traitorous warder on his road, repeat to him the alarm?
Not much time would be lost, for the gong still vibrated, and his personal safety ranked above his neighbor's in such a crisis.
But Claudius' hesitation had been that of physical weakness; confronted in this way with the problem of fraternity, he did not waver any longer.
On the threshold of safety, he turned straight back into the jaws of destruction.