He could hear nothing at first. There was a vast silence about him, a
silence as deep and unbroken as the abysmal pit in which he seemed to be
floating. After that he felt himself swaying and rocking, as though
tossed gently on the billows of a sea. This was the first thought that
took shape in his struggling brain--he was at sea; he was on a ship in
the heart of a black night, and he was alone. He tried to call out, but
his tongue seemed gone. It seemed a long time before day broke, and then
it was strange day. Little needles of light pricked his eyes; silver
strings shot like flashes of wave-like lightning through the darkness,
and he began to feel, and to hear. A dozen hands seemed holding him down
until he could move neither arms nor feet. He heard voices. There
appeared to be many of them at first, an unintelligible rumble of
voices, and then very swiftly they became two.
He opened his eyes. The first thing that he observed was a bar of
sunlight against the eastern wall of his room. That bit of sunlight was
like a magnet thrown there to reassemble the faculties that had drifted
away from him in the dark night of his unconsciousness. It tried to tell
him, first of all, that it was afternoon--quite late in the afternoon.
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