10 - At a Winters Fire by Bernard Capes

Immerse yourself in the enchanting tales of Bernard Capes, crafted to captivate your imagination as you cozy up by the fireplace during the long, chilly days of winter. Let A. Gramour guide you through this collection of stories that promise to entertain and warm your spirit.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Section ten of At a Winter's Fire. This is a
LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain.
From more information or to volunteer, please visit libervux dot org.
Recording by Kevin Barbudo At a Winter's Fire by Bernard
Capes An eddy on the Floor. Part two of Polyhister's
narrative continued and finished after a lapse of forty years.

(00:25):
With my unexpected appointment as doctor to d Jail, I
seemed to have put on the seven league boots of success.
No doubt, it was an extraordinary degree of good fortune,
even to one who had looked forward to the broad
view of confidence. Yet I think, perhaps on account of
the very casual nature of my promotion, I never took
the post entirely seriously. At the same time, I was

(00:46):
fully bent on justifying my little Cockney patron's choice by
a resolute subscription to his theories of prison management. Major
James Shrike inspired me with a curious conceit of impertinent
respect in person and the very embodiment of that insignificant
vulgarity without extenuating circumstances, which is a type in caricature
of the ultimate Cockney. He possessed a force of mind

(01:10):
and an earnestness of purpose that absolutely redeemed him. In
close acquaintanceship, I found him all he had stated himself
to be, and something more. He had a noble object
always in view, the employment of sane and humanitarian methods
in the treatment of redeemable criminals, and he strove towards
it with completely untiring devotion. He was of those who

(01:30):
never insists beyond the limits of their own understanding, clear
sighted in discipline, frank and relaxation, an altruist in the
larger sense. His undaunted persistence, as I learned, received ample
illustration some few years prior to my acquaintance with him,
when his system, being experimental resident mature, a devastating endemic
of typhoid in the prison had for a time stultified

(01:52):
his efforts. He stuck to his post, but so virulent
was the outbreak that the prison commissioners judged a complete
evacuation of the building and overhauling the drainage to be
necessary as a consequence for some eighteen months, during thirteen
of which the governor and his household remained sole inmates
of the solitary pile so sluggishly do we redeem our

(02:13):
condemned social boglends. The system stood still for lack of
material to mold. At the end of over a year
of stagnation, a contract was accepted and the workmen put in,
and another five months saw the prison re ordered for
practical purposes. The interval of force inactivity must have sorely
tried the patient of the governor. Practical theorists, condemned to

(02:34):
rust too often eed out their own hearts. Major Shrike
never referred to this period, and indeed laboriously snubbed any
allusion to it. He was I have a shrewd notion,
something of an officially petted reformer. Anyhow, to his abolition
of the insensate barbarism of crank and treadmill in favor
of civilizing methods, no opposition was offered. Solitary confinement, a

(02:58):
punishment outside all nature to a gregarious race, found no
advocate in him. A man's own suffering mind, he argued,
must be of all moral food, the most poisonous from
defeedon surround a scorpion with fire, and he stings himself
to death. They say, throw a diseased soul entirely upon
its own resources and moral suicide results. To sum up

(03:21):
his nature, embodied humanity without sentimentalism, firmness without obstinacy, individuality
without selfishness. His activity was so boundless, his devotion to
a system so real as to admit no utilitarian sophistries
into his scheme of personal benevolence. Before I had been
with him a week, I respected him as I had
never respected a man before. One evening, it was during

(03:43):
the second month of my appointment. We were sitting in
his private study, a dark, comfortable room lined with books.
It was an occasion on which a new characteristic of
the man was offered to my inspection. A prisoner of
a somewhat unusual type had come in that day, a
spiritualistic medium convey of imposture. To this person, I casually referred,

(04:04):
May I ask how you propose dealing with the newcomer
on the familiar lines. But surely here we have a
man of superior education, of imagination. Even no, no, no,
a hawker's opportunities that describes it. These fellows would make
death itself of vulgarity. You've no faith, there, not a
tittle heaven forfend, a sheet and a turnip are poetry

(04:27):
to their manifestations. It's as crude and sour soil for
us to work on, as any I know will card
it wholesale. I take you excuse me for my saying so.
For a supremely skeptical man as to what the supernatural,
there was no answer during a considerable interval. Presently it
came with deliberate insistence. It is a principle with me

(04:52):
to oppose bullying. We are here for a definite purpose,
his duty plain to any man who wills to read it.
May be disembodied spirits who seek to distress or annoy
where they can no longer control. If there are mine,
which is not yet divorced from its means to material action,
declines to be influenced by any irresponsible whimsy emanating from

(05:13):
a place whose denizens appear to be actuated by a
mere frivolous antagonism to all human order and progress. But
supposing you a murderer to be haunted by the presentment
of your victim, I will imagine that to be my case. Well,
it makes no difference. My interest is with the great
human system, in one of whose veins I am a

(05:33):
circulating drop. It is my business to help to keep
the system sound, to do my duty without fear or favor.
If disease, say a fouled conscious, contaminates me, it is
for me to throw off the incubus, not to accept
it and transmit the poison. Whatever my lapses of nature,
I owe it to the entire system to work for
purity in my allotted sphere, and not to allow any

(05:56):
micro bugbear to ride me rough shod to the detriment
of men. My follow drops, I laughed. It should be
for you, I said, to learn to shiver like the
boy in the fairy tale. I cannot, he answered, with
a peculiar quiet smile. And yet prisons, above all places
should be haunted. Very shortly after his arrival, I was

(06:20):
called to the cell of the medium f He suffered,
by his own statement, from severe pains in the head.
I found the man to be nervous, an emic, his
manner characterized by a sort of hysterical effantry. Send me
to the infirmary, he begged. This isn't punishment but torture.
We are your symptoms. I see things. My case has

(06:41):
no comparison with others. Two men of my supersensitiveness close
confinement is mere cruelty. I made a short examination. He
was restless under my hands. You'll stay where you are,
I said. He broke out into violent abuse, and I
left him. Later in the day I visited him again.
He was then white and sullen, but under his mood

(07:02):
I could read a real excitement of some sort. Now
confess to me, my man, I said, what do you see?
He eyed me narrowly, with his lips a little shaky.
Will you have me moved if I tell you, I
can give no promise till I know. He made up
his mind after an interval of silence. There's something uncanny

(07:24):
in my neighborhood. Who's confined to the next cell there
to the left, To my knowledge, it's empty. He shook
his head incredulously, very well. I said, I don't mean
to bandy words with you, and I turned to go
at that. He came after me with a frightened choke. Doctor,
your mission's a merciful one. I'm not trying to sauce you.

(07:47):
For God's sake, have me moved. I can see further
than most I tell you. The fellow's manner gave me pause.
He was patently and beyond the pride of concealment and terrified.
What do you see? I repeated stubbornly. It isn't that
I see, but I know the cell's not empty. I
stared at him in considerable wonderment. I will make inquiries,

(08:09):
I said. You may take that for a promise. If
the cell proves empty, you stop where you are. I
noticed that he dropped his hands with a lost gesture.
As I felt him, I was sufficiently moved to accost
the warder, who awaited me on the spot. Johnson, I said,
is that cell empty? Sir? Answered the man sharply and
at once. Before I could respond, f came suddenly to

(08:32):
the door, which I still hauled open. You lying cur,
he shouted, you damned lying cur. The warder thrust the
man back with violence. Now you forty nine, he said,
dry up, and none of your sauce, And he banged
the door with a sounding slap and turned to me
with a lowering face. The prisoner inside yelped and stormed

(08:53):
at the studded panels. That cell's empty, Sir, repeated Johnson.
Will you, as a matter of conscience, let me convince myself,
I promised the man, No, I can't you can't. No, sir,
this is a piece of stupid discourtesy. You can have
no reason. Of course, I can't open it, that's all,

(09:14):
oh Johnson. Then I must go to the fountain head.
Very well, sir. Quite baffled by the man's obstinacy, I
said no more, but walked off. If my anger was roused,
my curiosity was piqued in proportion. I had no opportunity
of interviewing the governor all day, but at night I
visited him by invitation to play a game of piquet.

(09:37):
He was a man without incumbrances, as a severe conservatism
designates the lairs of the cottage and at home, lived
at ease, and indulged his amusement without commitment. I found
him tasting his books, with which the room was well lined,
and drawing with relish at an excellent cigar. In the
intervals of the courses. He nodded to me and held

(09:58):
out an open volume in his left hand. Listen to
this fellow, he said, tapping the page with his fingers.
The most tolerable sort of revenge is for those wrongs
which there is no law to remedy. But then let
a man take heed the revenge be such as there
is no law to punish else a man's enemy is
still beforehand and is two for one. Some, when they

(10:21):
take revenge, are desirous the party. They should know whence
it cometh. This is the more generous for the delight
seemeth to be not so much in doing the hurt
as in making the party repent. But base and crafty
cowards are like the arrow that flieth in the dark cosmos.
Duke of Florence had a desperate saying against perfidious or

(10:41):
neglecting friends, as if these wrongs were unpardonable. You shall
read said he that we are commanded to forgive our enemies,
but you never read that we are commanded to forgive
our friends. Is he not a rare fellow who said,
I Francis Bacon, who screwed his wit to his philosophy
like a hammer head to its handle, and knocked a

(11:03):
nail in at every blow. How many of our friends
round about here would be picking an oakum now if
they had made a gospel of that quotation. You mean
they take no heed that the law may punish for
that which it gives no remedy. Precisely and specifically as
to revenge the criminal, from the murderer to the petty

(11:23):
pilferer is actuated solely by the spirit of vengeance, vengeance,
blind and speechless towards a system that forces him into
a position quite outside his natural instincts. As to that,
we have left nature in the thicket. It is hopeless
hunting for her. Now we hear her breathing sometimes, my friend,
Otherwise her majesty's prison locks would rust. But I grant

(11:47):
you we have grown so unfamiliar with her that we
call her simplest manifestations supernatural nowadays. That reminds me. I
visited f this afternoon. The man was in a queer way, foxing,
in my opinion, hysteria probably, Oh, what was the matter
with him? The format took with some absurd prejudice about

(12:08):
the next cell, number forty seven, he swore was not empty,
was quite upset about it, said there was some infernal
influence at work in his neighborhood nerves. He finds, I
suppose may revenge themselves on one who has made a
habit of playing tricks with them. To satisfy him, I
asked Johnson to open the door of the next cell. Well,
he refused. It is closed by my orders that sattles it.

(12:33):
Of course, the manner of Johnson's refusal was a bit uncivil.
But he had been looking at me intently all this time,
so intently that I was conscious of a little embarrassment
and confusion. His mouth was set like a dash between brackets,
and his eyes glistened. Now his features relaxed, and he
gave a short, high nah of a laugh. My dear fellow,

(12:53):
he must make allowances for the rough old lurture. He
was a soldier. He is all cut and measured out
to the regimental pattern. With him major's strike like the king,
can do no wrong. Did ever tell you he served
under me in India? He did, And moreover I saved
his life in there, in an engagement worse from the
bite of a snake. It was a mere question of will.

(13:15):
I told him to wake and walk, and he did.
They thought him already in rigor mortis. And as for him, well,
his devotion to me since has been single to the
last degree. That says it should be, to be sure,
and he's quite in my confidence. You must pass over
the old beggar's churlishness. I laughed in the scent. And
then an odd thing happened as I spoke. I'd walked

(13:38):
over to a bookcase on the opposite side of the
room to that on which my host stood. Near this
bookcase hung a mirror and a blong affair set in
brass refuse work on the wall, and happening to glance
into it. As I approached, I caught sight of the
Major's reflection as he turned his face to follow my movement.
I say, turned his face a formal description, only what

(13:59):
meant my ste artled gaze was an image of some
nameless horror, of features grooved and battered and shapeless, as
if they had been torn by a wild beast. I
gave a little indrawn gasp and turned about. There stood
the Major, plainly himself, with a pleasant smile on his face.
What's up? Said he? He spoke abstractedly, pulling his cigar,

(14:20):
and I answered rudely, that's a damned bad looking glass
of yours. I didn't know there was anything wrong with it,
he said, still abstracted in a part, And indeed, when
my sheer mental effort I forced myself to look again.
There stood my companion, as he stood in the room.
I gave a tremulous laugh, muttered something or nothing, and

(14:40):
fell to examining the books in the case. But my
fingers shook a trifle as I aimlessly pulled out one
volume after another. Am I getting fanciful? I thought, I,
whose business it is to give a practical account of
every bugbear of the nerves? Bah, my liver must be
out of order. A speck of bile in one's eye
may look a flying dragon. I dismissed the folly from

(15:02):
my mind and set myself resolutely to inspecting the books
marshaled before me. Roving amongst them, I pulled out entirely
at random, a thin, worn duo decimo that was thrust
well at the back of the shelf end, as if
it shrank from comparison with its prosperous and portly neighbors.
Nothing but chance impelled me to the choice, And I
don't know to this day what the ragged volume was about.

(15:24):
It opened naturally at a marker that lay in it
a folded slip of paper yellow with age, and glancing
at this a printed name caught my eye. With some
stir of curiosity, I spread the slip out. It was
a title page to a volume of poems, presumably, and
the author was James Shrike. I uttered an exclamation and

(15:44):
turned book in hand. An author, I said, you an author,
Major Shrike. To my surprise, he snapped round upon me
with something like a glare of fury on his face.
This the more startled me, as I believed I had
a reason to regard him as a man whose princes
of conduct had long disciplined a temper that was naturally
hasty enough. Before I could speak to explain, he had

(16:07):
come hurriedly across the room and had rudely snatched the
paper out of my hand. How did this get? He began, Then,
in a moment, came to himself and apologized for his
ill manners. I thought every scrap of the stuff had
been destroyed, he said, and tore the page into fragments.
It is an ancient effusion, doctor, perhaps the greatest folly
of my life. But as something of a sore subject

(16:29):
with me, and I should be obliged to feel not
refer to it again. He courted my forgiveness so frankly
that the matter passed without embarrassment, and we had our
game and spent a genial evening together. But memory of
the queer little scene stuck in my mind. I cannot
forbear pondering it fitfully. Surely here was a new side
light that played upon my friend in superior a little fantastically,

(16:54):
conscious of a certain vague wonder in my mind. I
was traversing the prison, lost in thought after my so
sshcable evening with the governor, when the fact that dim
light was issuing from the door open of cell n.
Forty nine brought me to myself and to a pause
in the corridor outside. Then I saw that something was
wrong with the cell's inmate, and that my services were required.

(17:14):
The medium was struggling in the floor in what looked
like an epileptic fit, and Johnson and another warder were
holding him from doing an injury to himself. The younger
man welcomed my appearance with relief. Heard him guggling, he said,
and thought, as something was up, you come timely, sir.
More assistance was procured, and I ordered the prisoner's removal

(17:35):
to the infirmary for a minute. Before following him. I
was left alone with Johnson. It came to a climax,
I said, looking the man steadily in the face, he
may be subject to him, sir, he replied evasively. I
walked deliberately up to the closed door of the adjoining cell,
which was the last on that side of the corridor,
huddled against the massive end wall and half embedded in it,

(17:58):
as it seemed, it lay in a in shadow and
bore every sign of dust and disuse. Looking closely, I
saw that the trap in the door was not only
firmly bolted, but screwed into its socket. I turned and
said to the warder quietly, is it long since this
cell was in use? You are very fond of asking questions,
he answered doggedly. It was evident he would baffle me

(18:21):
by impertinence rather than yield to confidence. A queer insistence
had seized me a strange desire to know more about
this mysterious chamber. But for all my curiosity, I flushed
the man's tone. You have your orders, I said, sternly,
and do well to hold by them. I doubt, nevertheless,
if they include impertinence to your superiors. I look straight

(18:43):
on my duty, sir, he said, a little abashed. I
don't wish to give offense. He did not. I feel
sure he followed his instinct to throw me off the
scent that was all. I strode up off in a fume,
and after attending f and the infirmary, went promptly to
my own quarters. I was in an odd frame of mind,
and for long tramps my sitting room to and fro,

(19:05):
too restless to go to bed, or, as an alternative,
to settle down to a book. There was a welling
up in my heart of some emotion that I could
neither trace nor define. It seemed neighbor to terror, neighbor
to an intense feigning pity, Yet was not distinctly either
of these. Indeed, where was cause for one or the
subject of the other. F might have endured mental sufferings

(19:27):
which it was only human to help to end. Yet
F a swindling rogue, who, once relieved, merited no further consideration.
It was not in him my sentiments were wasted. Who
then was responsible for them? There was a very plain
line of demarcation between the legitimate spirit of inquiry and
mere apish curiosity. I could recognize that I have no

(19:49):
doubt as a rule, Yet in my then mood, under
the influence of a kind of morbid seizure, inquisitiveness took
me by the throat. I could not whistle my mind
from the chase of a certain grin yard will of
the wisp. And on I went, stumbling and floundering through
bog and mire, until it fell into a state of
collapse and was useful for nothing else. I went to

(20:09):
bed and to sleep without difficulty. But I was conscious
of myself all the time, and of a shadowless horror
that seemed to come stealthily out of the corners, and
to bend over and look at me, and to be
nothing but a curtain or a hanging coat. When I
started and stared over and over again this happened, my
temperature rose by a leapse, and suddenly I saw that
if I failed to assert myself and promptly, fever would

(20:32):
lap me in a consuming fire. Then in a moment
I broke into a profuse perspiration, and sank, exhausted into
a delicious unconsciousness. Morning found me restored to vigor, but
still with the maggot of curiosity boring into my brain.
It worked there all day and for many subsequent days,
and at last it seemed as if my every faculty

(20:53):
were honeycombed with its ramifications. Then this will not do,
I thought, but still the tunneling process us went on.
At first, I would not acknowledge to myself what all
this mental to do was about. I was ashamed of
my new development, in fact, and nervous too in a
degree of what it might reveal in the matter of
moral degeneration. But gradually, as the curious devil mastered me,

(21:16):
I grew into such harmony with it that I could
shut my eyes no longer to the true purpose of
its insistence. It was the closed cell about which my
thoughts hovered like crows circling around carrion. In the dead
waist and middle of a certain night, I awoke with
a strange, quick recovery of consciousness. There was the passing
of a single expiration, and I had been asleep and

(21:39):
was awake. I had gone to bed with no sense
of premonition or of resolve in a particular direction. I
sat up a monomaniac. It was as if, swelling in
the silent hours, the tumor of curiosity had come to
a head, and in a moment it was necessary to
operate upon it. I make no excuse for my then condition.
I am convinced I was the victim of some undistinguishable force,

(22:02):
that I was an agent under the control of the supernatural,
if you like. Some thought had been in my mind
of late, that in my position it was my duty
to unriddle the mystery of the closed cell. This was
a sop timidly held out to and rejected. My better reason.
I sought, and I knew it in my heart, solution
of the puzzle, because it was a puzzle with an

(22:22):
atmosphere that visited my moral fiber. Now suddenly I knew
I must act, or by forcing self control, imperil my
mind's stability, all strung due sort of exaltation, I rose
noiselessly and dressed myself with rapid nervous hands. My every
faculty was focused upon a solitary point. Without and around

(22:43):
there was nothing but shadow and uncertainty. I seemed conscious
of only shaft of light as it were, traversing the
darkness and globing itself in a steady disk of radiance
on a lone leaf door, slipping out into the great
echoing vault of the prison AND's dockinged feet. I sped
with no hesitation of purpose, in the direction of the
corridor that was my goal. Surely, some resolute providence guided

(23:06):
and encompassed me, for no meeting with the night patrol
occurred at any point to embarrass or deter me. Like
a ghost myself, I flitted along the stone flags of
the passages, hardly waking a murmur from then in my progress,
without I knew, a wild and stormy wind thundered on
the walls of the prison. Within where the very atmosphere
was self contained, a cold and solemn peace held like

(23:29):
an irrevocable judgment. I found myself, as if in a dream,
before the sealed door that had for days harassed my
waking thoughts. Dim light from a distant gas jet made
a patch of yellow upon one of its panels. The
rest was buttressed with a shadow. A sense of fear
and constriction was upon me as I drew softly from
my pocket a screwdriver I had brought with me. It

(23:51):
never occurred to me I swear that the quest was
no business of mine, and that even now I could
withdraw from it, and no one would be the wiser.
But I was. I was afraid, and there was not
even the negative comfort of knowing that the neighboring cell
was tenanted. It gaped like a ghostly garret next door
to a deserted house. What reason had I to be

(24:12):
there at all, or being there to fear? I can
no more explain than tell how it was that I,
an impartial follower of my vocation, had allowed myself to
be tricked by that in the nerves I had made
at my interest to study and combat others. My hand
that held the tool was cold and wet. The stiff
little shriek of the first screw as it turned at
first uneasily in its socket, sent a jarring thrill through me.

(24:36):
But I persevered, and it came out readily, by and by,
as did the four or five others that held the
chap secure. Then I paused a moment, and I confess
the quick pant of fear seemed to come gray from
my lips. There were sounds about me, the deep breathing
of imprisoned men, and I envied the sleepers their hard
wrung reposts. At last, in one access of determination, I

(24:59):
put out my my hand, and, sliding back the bolt,
hurriedly flung open the trap. An acrid whiff of dust
assailed my nostrils as I stepped back apace and stood
expectant of anything or nothing. What did I wish or
dread or foresee? The complete absurdity of my behavior was
revealed to me in a moment. I could shake off
the incubuss here and now and be a sane man again.

(25:22):
I giggled, with an actual ring of self contempt my voice.
As I made a forward movement to close the aperture.
I advanced my face to it and inhaled the sluggish
air that stole forth and God in Heaven I had
staggered back with that cry in my throat when I
felt fingers like iron clamps close on my arm and
hold it. The grip more than the face I turned

(25:43):
to look upon in my surging terror, was forcibly human.
It was the warder Johnson who had seized me, and
my heart bounded as I met the cold fury of
his eyes. Prying. He said in a hoarse, savage whisper,
So you will, will you, and now let the devil
help you. It was not this fellow I had feared,
though his white face was set like a demon's, And

(26:04):
in the thick of my terror, I made a feeble
attempt to assert my authority. Let me go, I muttered,
what you dare in his frenzy. He shook my arm
as a terrier shakes a rat, and like a dog
he held on, daring me to release myself. For the moment,
an instinct half murderers slept in me. It sank and
was overwhelmed in a slough of some more secret emotion. Oh,

(26:27):
I whispered, collapsing as it were, to the man's fury,
even pitifully deprecating it. What is it? What's there? It
drew me something unamiable. He gave me a snapping laugh,
like a cough. His rage waxed. Second by second. There
was a maniacal suggestiveness to it, and not much longer
it was evident could he have it under control? I

(26:49):
saw it run in congest in his eyes, and on
the instant of its accumulation, he tore at me with
a sudden, wild strength, and drove me up against the
very door of the secret cell. The action, the necessity
of self defense, restored me to some measure of dignity. Insanity.
Let me go, you, ruffian, I cried, struggling to free
myself from his grasp. It was useless. He held me madly.

(27:12):
There was no beating him off, and so holding me
he managed to produce a single key from one of
his pockets and to slip it, with a rusty clang,
into the lock of the door. You dirty, prying civilian,
he panted at me, as he swayed this way and that,
with the pull of my body, you shall have your wish.
By God, you want to see inside? Do you look? Then?

(27:34):
He dashed open the door as he spoke and pulled
me violently into the opening. A great waft of the cold,
dank air came at us, and with it what the
warder had jerked his dark lantern from his belt, and
now an arm of his still clasped about one of mine,
snapped the slide open. Where is it? He muttered, directing
the disk of light around and about the floor of

(27:55):
the cell. I ceased struggling. Some counter influence was raising
an eye curiosity in me. Ah, he cried in a
stifled voice. There you are, my friend. He was setting
the light, slowly traveling along the stone flags close by
the wall, over against us, and now so guiding it.
Looked askance at me with a small greedy smile. Follow

(28:18):
the light, sir, he whispered, jeeringly. I looked and saw
twhirling on the floor, in the patch of radiance cast
by the lamp, a little eddy of dust. It seemed
this eddy was never still, but went circling in that
stagnant place, without apparent cause or influence. And as it
circled it moved slowly on by wall and corner, so

(28:38):
that presently in its progress it must reach us where
we stood now. Droughts will play queer freaks in quiet places.
And of this trifling phenomenon I should have taken little
note ordinarily, But I must say at once that as
I gazed upon the odd moving thing, my heart seemed
to fall in upon itself like a drained artery. Johnson,

(28:58):
I cried, I must get out of this. I don't
know what's the matter, or why do you hold me?
Damn it, man, let me go, Let me go, I say,
As I grappled with him. He dropped the lantern with
a crash, and flung his arms violently about me. You don't,
he panted, the muscles of his bent and rigid neck,
seeming actually to cut into my shoulder blade. You don't,

(29:20):
By God, you came of your own accord, and now
you shall take your belly full. It was a struggle
for life or death, or worse, for life and reason.
But I was young and wiry, and held my own
if I could do a little more. Yet there was
something to combat beyond the mere brute strength of a
man I struggled with. For I fought in an atmosphere
of horror unexplainable, and I knew that inch by inch

(29:43):
the thing on the floor was circling around in our direction. Suddenly,
in the breathing darkness, I felt it close upon us,
gave one mortal yell of fear, and with a last
despairing fury, tore myself from the encircling arms and sprang
into the corridor without As I plunged and leaped, the
warder clutched at me, missed, caught a foot on the

(30:04):
edge of the door, and as the latter whirled two
with a clap, fell heavily at my feet in a fit. Then,
as I stood staring down upon him, steps sounded along
the corridor, and the voices of scared men hurrying up.
End of section ten. This recording is in the public domain.