imber! My fists ached, and a repetition of
nasty dull knocks on back and neck, slogging thumps dealt by men getting
to make sure of me, shattered my breathing.

I cried out for a pause, offered to take a couple of them at a time: I
challenged three-the fourth to bide. I was now the dancer: left, right,
and roundabout I had to swing, half-stunned, half-strangled with gorge.
Those terrible blows in the back did the mischief. Sickness threatened
to undermine me. Boxers have breathing-time: I had none. Stiff and sick,
I tried to run; I tottered, I stood to be knocked down, I dropped like
a log-careless of life. But I smelt earth keenly, and the damp grass and
the devil's play of their feet on my chin, chest, and thighs, revived
a fit of wrath enough to set me staggering on my legs again. They
permitted it, for the purpose of battering me further. I passed from
down to up mechanically, and enjoyed the chestful of air given me in the
interval of rising: thought of Germany and my father, and Janet at her
window, complacently; raised a child's voice in my throat for mercy,
quite inaudible, and accepted my punishment. One idea I had was, that I
could not possibly fail as a speaker after this--I wanted but a minute's
grace to fetch breath for an oration, beginning, 'You fools!' for
I guessed that they had fallen upon the wrong man. Not a second was
allowed. Soon the shrewd physical bracing, acting momentarily on
my brain, relaxed; the fitful illumination ceased: all ideas faded
out-clung about my beaten body-fled. The body might have been tossed
into its grave, for aught I knew.

CHAPTER XLVI. AMONG GIPSY WOMEN

I cannot say how long it was after my senses had gone when I began to
grope for them on the warmest of heaving soft pillows, and lost the
slight hold I had on them with the effort. Then came a series of
climbings and fallings, risings to the surface and sinkings fathoms
below. Any attempt to speculate pitched me back into darkness. Gifted
with a pair of enormous eyes, which threw surrounding objects to a
distance of a mile away, I could not induce the diminutive things to
approach; and shutting eyes led to such a rolling of mountains in my
brain, that, terrified by the gigantic revolution, I lay determinedly
staring; clothed, it seemed positive, in a tight-fitting suit of
sheet-lead; but why? I wondered why, and immediately received an
extinguishing blow. My pillow was heavenly; I was constantly being
cooled on i