The blood was
streaming through the puffy veins and vesicles. The operation hurt
horribly; in fact, I was one mass of crude, raw, painful man flesh. But
now I was full of hope and despite the muscular torments of returning
animation I felt that my vigour was returning. Belleville snuffed the
wick and struck a match along the table. The head came off. He took
another and rubbed it on the sole of his shoe, stooping slightly to do
so. As he moved I reached out and twined my fingers round the hilt of
his revolver. But I had not the strength to lift it up. I cannot paint
the agony of that experience. I exerted every atom of my will, but my
hand was like a putty puppet. Tantalus never suffered torture half as
keen. Withdrawing my hand, I put the fingers in my mouth and sucked
the still half-lifeless digits. Meanwhile, the lamp flickered alight;
Belleville took up his revolver and resumed his task. I watched him
hungrily. The blue shaft once more began to play and stab the walls. It darted hither and thither, like an incandescent elf, dancing up
and down and round and round, and into every hole and cranny of the
room. But it did not find me out, because moving round and round the
table as Belleville moved I always kept behind him. But this could not
last for ever, and, indeed, the end came too soon. Belleville uttered
suddenly a savage curse and swung round full upon me. Perhaps I had
made some sound that had betrayed me to his nerve-strained senses. I do
not know. He cried, "Ha! at last," and fired point blank. The bullet
whistled past my temple. The smoke of the discharge flamed blue in the
rays of the lanthorn. I fell upon the table and thrust it like a ram
with all my force against my adversary. He fired again and once more
missed, but ere he could repeat his tactics the table struck him and
the lanthorn fell. He staggered back and the lanthorn rolled underneath
the table. I pushed the table forward and kicked the lanthorn with my
foot. It went out. Belleville, recovering his equilibrium, stood like
an image peering straight at me and listening. Yet he did not see me:
and for the moment I was safe, for the table was between us. But the
man had brains. Judging swiftly where I was most likely to be, he gave
an unexpected spring and vaulted clear across the obstacle. I had just
time to step back ere he landed. He swung his arms about like flails,
but failing immediately to find me, his ugly temper must needs flare
up in curses. It was just what I needed to cover the sound of my
movements. I evaded him and returned to the table, and then he knew
not where I was. In a few moments he realised his folly and, once more
relapsing into silence, he took up his lamp. But the oil had either
been wasted or was exhausted. The wick refused to catch. He groaned
out a blasphemous oath on this discovery, and rushed down to the
cabinet, from which first he had procured the lanthorn. I followed him
as swiftly as I could, having care to make no sound, and while he was
filling the lamp with oil from a beautifully carven vase of solid gold
Egyptian ware of the fifteenth dynasty, I once more put my hand upon
the hilt of his revolver, which he had momentarily laid upon the edge
of the cabinet. But this time I found I could hold and use it, too. Shadow-like, I caught it up and put my finger on the trigger. Then I
backed away a yard or two and leaned upon a case of glass and steel. "Belleville!" said I. He started as though an adder had stung him, then seeing his pistol
gone, he let both vase and lanthorn fall in his dismay and swung on
heel to face my voice. "It's my turn now," I muttered. "Hands above your head--up, man,
up--higher--higher!" He saw the muzzle pointing at his breast and
sullenly obeyed. I made him walk backwards to the chair that formerly
had prisoned me and sit in it. And then, the steel pressed to his ear
to keep him still, I managed, with one hand, to pass a strap around
his throat and buckle it. Afterwards I similarly bound his wrists
and ankles. When all was done I was so sore spent, so hideously full
of weary pain, that I lay upon the floor and sank immediately into a
troubled sleep. Belleville woke me with his struggles to get free. Somehow or other he had pryed himself on tiptoe backward, and the heavy
chair, overbalancing, had dragged him over in its fall. That I had
not heard, but the weight of iron and his own body was all curiously
pressed upon one forearm, and the pain of it set him groaning like a
wounded bull. The strangest thing of all was that this arm was free. Somehow or other he had writhed it loose. After I had tied it up again
I sat down to think what I should do. I was not, however, in the mood
to sit in judgment on him then, for although much stronger from my
sleep, the exertion hurt, and every pang I suffered was too powerful
an advocate of vengeance to let me try the rascal soberly. I needed
food and drink. Not finding any in the room, I tried the door and
after some short search, made out its fastening--a simple but clever
slip of prodigious strength. I found the key to it in Belleville's
pocket. He was madly anxious to be made acquainted with his fate, but I
turned a deaf ear to all his questions, and slipping out of the room,
I slammed the door on his solicitations. I found myself in a long,
blind passage, lighted with a single jet, with another padded door
set in its farthest end. This opened to the same key as the first. It
gave me egress on a second passage, which led by three right angles
to a big velvet-draped arch and a bifurcated maze of broad-balconied
corridors. Here I saw the natural light of day for the first time in
more than a week. Ah! how I revelled in it. I stopped before an open
window and peered forth on a walled courtyard and the blank, tall wall
of a neighbouring mansion beyond. Street sounds percolated to my ears. It was like coming back to life from the grave. Drawing back from the
window, after some deep, delicious moments, I looked to find my body
and my hands and feet. But I could not see aught but vague, delusive
shadows, though the sunbeams glistened on me. The phenomenon filled
me with a new sense of marvel and uncertainty. I had to pinch myself
to make sure I was not a disembodied phantom--such stuff as dreams
are made of. Yet I was real enough to touch, thank Heaven. Reassured,
I made for the nearest door and softly tried it. Within was a man's
bedroom--Belleville's, perhaps. It was untenanted. The next apartment
was a sitting-room. It was also untenanted, but it contained a table,
cover-spread for two. With a sigh of joy, I entered and hurried to the
table. Under the first cover was a cold partridge pie. I did not touch
the others, but, Lord, how I enjoyed that pie! I might have been a
wolf--and then champagne! Later, seduced by an open cigar-box on the
mantel, I threw myself upon a lounge and lit a weed.