“I know now that he was afraid of me, but at the time that did not occur to me.  As I tried to explain to him he interrupted me in imperious tones, bidding me, I suppose, stand aside.

“He made to go past me, and I caught hold of him.

“I saw his face change at my grip.

“‘You fool,’ I cried.  ‘Don’t you know?  She is dead!’

“He started back.  He looked at me with cruel eyes.

“I saw a sort of exultant resolve leap into them—­delight.  Then suddenly, with a scowl, he swept his sword back—­so—­and thrust.”

He stopped abruptly.

I became aware of a change in the rhythm of the train.  The brakes lifted their voices and the carriage jarred and jerked.  This present world insisted upon itself, became clamorous.  I saw through the steamy window huge electric lights glaring down from tall masts upon a fog, saw rows of stationary empty carriages passing by, and then a signal-box, hoisting its constellation of green and red into the murky London twilight, marched after them.  I looked again at his drawn features.

“He ran me through the heart.  It was with a sort of astonishment—­no fear, no pain—­but just amazement, that I felt it pierce me, felt the sword drive home into my body.  It didn’t hurt, you know.  It didn’t hurt at all.”

The yellow platform lights came into the field of view, passing first rapidly, then slowly, and at last stopping with a jerk.  Dim shapes of men passed to and fro without.

“Euston!” cried a voice.

“Do you mean—?”

“There was no pain, no sting or smart.  Amazement and then darkness sweeping over everything.  The hot, brutal face before me, the face of the man who had killed me, seemed to recede.  It swept out of existence—­”

“Euston!” clamoured the voices outside; “Euston!”

The carriage door opened, admitting a flood of sound, and a porter stood regarding us.  The sounds of doors slamming, and the hoof-clatter of cab-horses, and behind these things the featureless remote roar of the London cobble-stones, came to my ears.  A truck-load of lighted lamps blazed along the platform.

“A darkness, a flood of darkness that opened and spread and blotted out all things.”

“Any luggage, sir?” said the porter.

“And that was the end?” I asked.

He seemed to hesitate.  Then, almost inaudibly, he answered, “No.”

“You mean?”

“I couldn’t get to her.  She was there on the other side of the temple—­ And then—­”

“Yes,” I insisted.  “Yes?”

“Nightmares,” he cried; “nightmares indeed!  My God!  Great birds that fought and tore.”

  XXVI.

  THE VALLEY OF SPIDERS.

Towards mid-day the three pursuers came abruptly round a bend in the torrent bed upon the sight of a very broad and spacious valley.  The difficult and winding trench of pebbles along which they had tracked the fugitives for so long expanded to a broad slope, and with a common impulse the three men left the trail, and rode to a little eminence set with olive-dun trees, and there halted, the two others, as became them, a little behind the man with the silver-studded bridle.