"Then--take a pull at this 'ere," said he, and thrust a flat
bottle into my hand. The fiery spirit burned my throat, but
almost immediately my strength and courage revived.
"Better?"
"Much better," I answered, returning the bottle, "and I thank
you--"
"Don't go for to thank me, young feller," said he, driving the
cork into the bottle with a blow of his fist, "you thank that
young feller as once done as much for me--at a fair. An' now
--cutaway--run!--the 'edge is good and dark, up yonder--lay low
a bit, and leave these damned Runners to me." I obeyed without
more ado, and, as I ran up the lane, I heard him shouting and
swearing as though engaged in a desperate encounter; and, turning
in the shadow of the hedge, I saw him met by two men, with whom,
still shouting and gesticulating excitedly, he set off, running
--down the lane.
And so I, once more, turned my face London-wards.
The blood still flowed from the cut in my head, getting often
into my eyes, yet I made good progress notwithstanding. But,
little by little, the effect of the spirits wore off, a
drowsiness stole over me, my limbs felt numbed and heavy. And
with this came strange fancies and a dread of the dark.
Sometimes it seemed that odd lights danced before my eyes, like
marsh-fires, and strange, voices gabbled in my ears, furiously
unintelligible, with laughter in a high-pitched key; sometimes I
cast myself down in the dewy grass, only to start up again,
trembling, and run on till I was breathless; but ever I struggled
forward, despite the throbbing of my broken head, and the gnawing
hunger that consumed me.
After a while, a mist came on, a mist that formed itself into
deep valleys, or rose in jagged spires and pinnacles, but
constantly changing; a mist that moved and writhed within itself.
And in this mist were forms, nebulous and indistinct, multitudes
that moved in time with me, and the voices seemed louder than
before, and the laughter much shriller, while repeated over and
over again, I caught that awful word: MURDER, MURDER.
Chief among this host walked one whose head and face were muffled
from my sight, but who watched me, I knew, through the folds,
with eyes that stared fixed and wide.
But now, indeed, the mist seemed to have got into my brain, and
all things were hazy, and my memory of them is dim. Yet I recall
passing Bromley village, and slinking furtively through the
shadows of the deserted High Street, but thereafter all is blank
save a memory of pain and toil and deadly fatigue.