sciousness; but it was a
false consciousness, since it brought with it the idea that my head lay
softly pillowed and that a woman's hand caressed my throbbing forehead.
Confusedly, as though in the remote past, I recalled a kiss--and the
recollection thrilled me strangely. Dreamily content I lay, and a
voice stole to my ears:

"They are killing him! they are killing him! Oh! do you not
understand?" In my dazed condition, I thought that it was I who had
died, and that this musical girl-voice was communicating to me the fact
of my own dissolution.

But I was conscious of no interest in the matter.

For hours and hours, I thought, that soothing hand caressed me. I
never once raised my heavy lids, until there came a resounding crash
that seemed to set my very bones vibrating--a metallic, jangling crash,
as the fall of heavy chains. I thought that, then, I half opened my
eyes, and that in the dimness I had a fleeting glimpse of a figure clad
in gossamer silk, with arms covered with barbaric bangles and slim
ankles surrounded by gold bands. The girl was gone, even as I told
myself that she was an houri, and that I, though a Christian, had been
consigned by some error to the paradise of Mohammed.

Then--a complete blank.

My head throbbed madly; my brain seemed to be clogged--inert; and
though my first, feeble movement was followed by the rattle of a chain,
some moments more elapsed ere I realized that the chain was fastened to
a steel collar--that the steel collar was clasped about my neck.

I moaned weakly.

"Smith!" I muttered, "Where are you? Smith!"

On to my knees I struggled, and the pain on the top of my skull grew
all but insupportable. It was coming back to me now; how Nayland Smith
and I had started for the hotel to warn Graham Guthrie; how, as we
passed up the steps from the Embankment and into Essex Street, we saw
the big motor standing before the door of one of the offices. I could
recall coming up level with the car--a modern limousine; but my mind
retained no impression of our having passed it--only a vague memory of
a rush of footsteps--a blow. Then, my vision of the hall of dragons,
and now this real awakening to a worse reality.

Groping in the darkness, my hands touched a body that lay close beside
me. My fingers sought and found the throat, sought and found the steel
collar about it.

"Smith," I groaned; and I shook the still form. "Smith, old man--speak
to me! Smith!"

Could