im no harm;
but he was my enemy, and should be forced to let me alone.

The fellow who had appeared so feeble at his cabin that I opened the
door for him, and so poor-spirited that his intellect claimed pity,
stood up as firm as a bear at my approach, and met my eyes with perfect
understanding.

Not another thing do I remember. The facts are simply these: I faced
Bellenger; no blows passed; my mind flashed blank with the partial
return of that old eclipse which has fallen upon me after strong
excitement, in more than one critical moment. The hiatus seems brief
when I awake though it may have lasted hours. I know the eclipse has
been upon me, like the wing-shadow of eternity; but I have scarcely let
go of time.

I could not prove that Bellenger dragged me to the parapet and threw me
into the river. If I had known it I should have laughed at his doing so,
for I could swim like a fish, through or under water, and sit on the
lake bottom holding my breath until Skenedonk had been known to dive for
me.

When next I sensed anything at all it was a feeling of cold.

I thought I was lying in one of the shallow runlets that come into Lake
George, and the pebbles were an uneasy bed, chilling my shoulders. I was
too stiff to move, or even turn my head to lift out of water the ear on
which it rested. But I could unclose my eyelids, and this is what I
saw:--a man naked to his waist, half reclining against a leaning slab of
marble, down which a layer of water constantly moved. His legs were
clothed, and his other garments lay across them. His face had sagged in
my direction. There was a deep slash across his forehead, and he showed
his teeth and his glassy eyes at the joke.

Beyond this silent figure was a woman as silent. The ridge of his body
could not hide the long hair spread upon her breast. I considered the
company and the moisture into which I had fallen with unspeakable
amazement. We were in a low and wide stone chamber with a groined
ceiling, supported by stone pillars. A row of lamps was arranged above
us, so that no trait or feature might escape a beholder.

That we were put there for show entered my mind slowly and brought
indignation. To be so helpless and so exposed was an outrage against
which I struggled in nightmare impotence; for I was bare to my hips
also, and I knew not what other marks I carried beside those which had
scarred me all my conscious life.

Now in the distance, and echoing, feet descended sta