“Yes! Yes!” he said—and in the blurred sound of the s there was evidence of foreign birth.
Keyed up as I was, I didn’t need any more warning than that.
I threw myself sidewise—a blind tumbling away from the spot where I stood. But I wasn’t quite quick enough.
The blow that came from behind didn’t hit me fairly, but I got enough of it to fold up my legs as if the knees were hinged with paper—and I slammed into a heap on the floor. …
Something dark crashed toward me. I caught it with both hands. It may have been a foot kicking at my face. I wrung it as a washerwoman wrings a towel.
Down my spine ran jar after jar. Perhaps somebody was beating me over the head. I don’t know. My head wasn’t alive. The blow that had knocked me down had numbed me all over. My eyes were no good. Shadows swam to and fro in front of them—that was all. I struck, gouged, tore at the shadows. Sometimes I found nothing. Sometimes I found things that felt like parts of bodies. Then I would hammer at them, tear at them. My gun was gone.
My hearing was no better than my sight—or not so good. There wasn’t a sound in the world. I moved in a silence that was more complete than any silence I had ever known. I was a ghost fighting ghosts.
I found presently that my feet were under me again, though some squirming thing was on my back, and kept me from standing upright. A hot, damp thing like a hand was across my face.
I put my teeth into it. I snapped my head back as far as it would go. Maybe it smashed into the face it was meant for. I don’t know. Anyhow the squirming thing was no longer on my back.