I sprang forward to arrest her progress, but at that instant a frightful
blow fell upon the back of my skull, crushing me, and I fell senseless
like a log.
How long I remained unconscious, or what events occurred during the
oblivion that fell upon me, I have no idea.
My only recollection is that I felt the presence of some person near me,
and I heard words uttered. But upon my ears they fell as if spoken so
far away as to be indistinguishable. Scenes strangely distorted, sad
and humorous, pleasing and horrible, flitted through my mind as I lay
dozing, half-conscious, striving to think, but unable even by the dint
of greatest effort, to sufficiently collect my senses to reflect with
reason.
In this half-dreamy stupor I must have remained a very long time. Hours
passed. I lay as one dead--unable to move, unable to think.
Gradually, however, I found my mind growing clearer. Thoughts, that at
first were hopelessly mixed, slowly shaped themselves; and I remember
trying to recall the startling events that had preceded the cowardly
blow dealt me by some unknown hand. Thus, painfully and with the utmost
difficulty, I struggled to regain knowledge of things about me.
Opening my eyes at last, I found myself in darkness, save for a glimmer
of faint grey light that crept in over the top of what I imagined to be
heavy closely-barred shutters. It was about ten o'clock at night when I
had been struck down; it was now already morning. Stretching forth my
cold, nerveless fingers, I groped to feel my surroundings on either
side, discovering myself still lying on the floor, but whereas the
drawing-room in which I had encountered Dora had been well-carpeted,
this room seemed bare, for I was lying upon cold flags. With a sudden
movement I put out my hands and raised my head, in an endeavour to
regain my feet. But this action brought vividly to my mind that the
injury I had received was serious.
A pain shot through my head. So excruciating was it that I fainted.
During the hours that followed all was again blank. When I reopened my
hot fevered eyes I saw that the streak of dawn--the one welcome ray that
inspired hope within me--was now a thin golden bar of sunshine, that
gave just sufficient light to enable me to distinguish my strange
surroundings. Endeavouring to reflect calmly, my eyes were fixed upon
the blackened ceiling. At first I wondered what had caused it to become
so sooty, and calculated the number of years during which spiders had
festooned their dust-laden webs upon it, when suddenly my eyes clearly
distinguished that the ceiling was arched--that it was unplastered, and
of bare begrimed brick.
Eagerly I looked on either side. The walls also were of bare brick I
was in a cellar!
Struggling unsteadily to my feet I stood amazed. Who, I wondered, had
conveyed me to this place? Surely not Dora! If I had been murderously
attacked, might not she also have fallen a victim? But why had she come
here; by what means had she obtained an entrance? As I recalled the
startling encounter of the previous night I recollected that she had
been dressed as if for a dance, and it was therefore probable that she
had slipped away from home on some errand that was imperative. Her
visit there placed a new complexion upon the remarkable current of
circumstances.
These and a thousand other puzzling thoughts filled my brain as I stood
in that gloomy, subterranean, vermin-infested place into which I had
been thrust. It was not large, but half filled by a great heap of
lumber piled up to the roof. There was something about the place that I
could not understand. I felt stifled; my nostrils were filled by a
strange sickening odour. Towards the window I walked to obtain fresh
air, but found what I had at first imagined to be shutters were not
shutters at all; the streak of welcome light came through a little
barred aperture about three inches wide in the pavement above. The
pains in my head caused me giddiness and nausea.
What if I had been imprisoned here? The horrifying prospect of slow
starvation in an empty, deserted house appalled me, and I sprang towards
the heavy door, that had at some time or other been strengthened by
bands of iron.