I sat up in bed, thinking the whole house
was falling about my ears. The sound was not repeated, and all was
profoundly silent. Wondering what on earth the noise could have been,
and feeling very thirsty, I got out of bed to get a drink of
lime-juice. To my annoyance, however, though I groped about
everywhere, knocking an ash tray off the mantelpiece and smashing the
lid of the soap-dish, I could find neither the lime-juice nor matches.
At length, giving it up as a bad job, I decided to get into bed again.
With that end in view, I groped my way through the darkness, steering
myself by the furniture, the position of which was, of course, quite
familiar to me--at least I imagined it was. Judge, then, of my
astonishment when I could not find the bed! At first I regarded it as
a huge joke, and laughed--how rich! Ha! ha! ha! Fancy not being able
to find one's way back to bed in a room of this dimension! Good enough
for _Punch_! Too good, perhaps, now. Ha! ha! ha! But it soon grew past
a joke. I had been round the room, completely round the room, twice,
and still no bed! I became seriously alarmed! Could I be ill? Was I
going mad? But no, my forehead was cool, my pulse normal. For some
seconds I stood still, not knowing what else to do; then, to make one
more desperate attempt, I stuck straight in front of me--and--ran
into something--something that recoiled and hit me. Thrilled with
amazement, I put up my hand to feel what it was, and touched a noose.
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