I knew that my hands were loosening at his back,
for all I could do. I let go and reached back to
pull away his arms, but they were locked and my
strength was nearly gone. I brought up my right
hand; I pounded at his nose till his whole face was
red from the blood of it; I felt of it and crunched
it in splinters under my fist. Tears streamed
down his cheeks, but no other sign did he make
that he felt it. All of him was in his two arms.
We swayed there for an endless time, two huge,
bloody animals, and all the thronged wharf and the
floating streets coming together there watched and
strangled with us and did not move. Crimson's
eyes were as glazed as mine with the awf id tension
of his arms. He tried and tried; with all the
strength that was in him he tried to break my
neck, and he could not break my neck. As I had
never known why I had lifted the stone in the hol-
low behind Cold Storage fields, so I had never
guessed what the fruit of it would be.
No arms fashioned out of flesh and bone could
close that fearful clamp forever. Crimson's mouth
opened, a horrible slit in a ground of red, and
out of it tumbled the most inane and senseless
mutterings.
The pressure over my throat eased away by
spasmodic degrees till the arm at last slipped
down and lay upon my chest. Our heads dropped
nearer to one another.
So we stood there staring dully into each other's
eyes. Centuries upon centuries of humanity had

396



STORM

scaled away from us in that passage of minutes,
leaving nothing in us but life.
