It was like the roaring of a waterfall. You could lie near it on the
grassy sward and maybe there would be a little last fading sunlight of
the day to warm you. And your belly could be empty with a gnawing pain,
but that was all right because there was the smell of food cooking and
soon you would have it full. A warrior returned from the hunt, had his
women to cook for him....
The phantasmagoria of Nixon's returning consciousness as he listened to
the roaring of the falling water seemed made up of queer things out of
his Indian heritage. But another part of his brain told him that was
absurd--told him that he was lying on something hard, with the feel
of sweat bathing his skin, and pain that slowly was becoming apparent
stabbing at him from scores of tiny wounds on his hands, his face, his
neck.
Then suddenly Nixon knew that he had opened his eyes. He lay staring,
puzzled, with a blurred scene resolving into outlines that he could
distinguish, but not understand. He was lying on his back, gazing
upward at what seemed a vaulted, shining metal ceiling close over his
head. It was sharply curved, two or three feet above him, as though
now he were lying in a shining, glowing vault. With returning strength
he tried to sit up, but could not. And then he realized that he was
shackled. He could see what looked like finely woven, white metallic
ropes. They wrapped his arms and legs together.
The waterfall was partly the roaring of weakness in his head; but
that seemed subsiding now and there was only a faintly throbbing hum
somewhere near him. A hum like a dynamo, or at least some sort of
mechanism. Turning his head, he saw that on one side of him the concave
metal wall had a row of small bullseye windows. They were spaced about
a foot apart, each the size of his fist. And in each of them there was
the vision of a black abyss of sky, with white blazing stars.
Again he tried to sit up. He could bend a little at the waist, and he
was able to get one elbow under him and his head up so that it was
nearly to the ribbed ceiling. At once, from the other side of him, away
from the bullseye windows, there was a faint, hurried scurrying of
little footsteps.