They appeared quite
companionable, especially Langdon.
"Didn't like you last night," he confessed frankly. "Thought you was one
of them damned police, running your nose into our business mebby."
He stood beside David, with the pail of water in his hand, and as David
bent over the basin Henry was behind him. He had drawn something from
his pocket, and was edging up close. As David dipped his hands in the
water he looked up into Langdon's face, and he saw there a strange and
unexpected change--that deadly malignity of last night. In that moment
the object in Henry's hand fell with terrific force on his head and he
crumpled down over the basin. He was conscious of a single agonizing
pain, like a hot iron thrust suddenly through him, and then a great and
engulfing pit of darkness closed about him.
CHAPTER XXV
In that chaotic night in which he was drifting, David experienced
neither pain nor very much of the sense of life. And yet, without seeing
or feeling, he seemed to be living. All was dead within him but that
last consciousness, which is almost the spirit; he might have been
dreaming, and minutes, hours, or even years might have passed in that
dream. For a long time he seemed to be sinking through the blackness;
and then something stopped him, without jar or shock, and he was rising.
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