A hundred wires cut into my throat at
once. I gasped, choked, suffocated, and in my mad efforts to find a
foothold kicked out frantically in all directions. But this only
resulted in an increase of my torments, since with every plunge the
noose grew tauter. My agony at last grew unbearable; I could feel the
sides of my raw and palpitating thorax driven into one another, while
every attempt to heave up breath from my bursting lungs was rewarded
with the most excruciating paroxysms of pain--pain more acute than I
thought it possible for any human being to endure. My head became
ten times its natural size; blood--foaming, boiling blood--poured
into it from God knows where, and under its pressure my eyes bulged
in their sockets, and the veins in my nose cracked. Terrific
thunderings echoed and re-echoed in my ears; my tongue, huge as a
mountain, shot against my teeth; a sea of fire raged through my
brain, and then--blackness--blackness inconceivable. When I recovered
consciousness, O'Donnell, I found myself standing, cold and
shivering, but otherwise sound and whole, on the chilly oilcloth. I
had, now, no difficulty in finding my way back to bed, and in about
an hour's time succeeded in falling asleep. I slept till late, and,
on getting up, tried to persuade myself that my horrible experience
was but the result of another nightmare.
"As you may guess, after all this, I did not look forward to bedtime,
and counted the minutes as they flew by with the utmost regret.
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