* * * *

In my first half-moment of wakefulness I was aware that the room was
filled with the pink dancers of the picture, in nimble, fierce-happy
motion. They were man-size, too, or nearly so, visible in the dark with
the dim radiance of fox-fire. On the small scale of the painting they
had seemed no more than babyishly plump; now they were gross, like huge
erect toads. And, as I awakened fully, they were closing in, a menacing
ring of them, around my bed. One stood at my right side, and its grip,
clumsy and rubbery-hard like that of a monkey, was closed upon my arm.

* * * * *

I saw and sensed all this, as I say, in a single moment. With the
sensing came the realization of peril, so great that I did not stop to
wonder at the uncanniness of my visitors. I tried frantically to jerk
loose. For the moment I did not succeed and as I thrashed about,
throwing my body nearly across the bed, a second dancer dashed in from
the left. It seized and clamped my other arm. I felt, rather than heard,
a wave of soft, wordless merriment from them all. My heart and sinews
seemed to fail, and briefly I lay still in a daze of horror, pinned down
crucifix-fashion between my two captors.

Was that a _hammer_ raised above me as I sprawled?

There rushed and swelled into me the sudden startled strength that
sometimes favors the desperate. I screamed like any wild thing caught in
a trap, rolled somehow out of bed and to my feet. One of the beings I
shook off and the other I dashed against the bureau. Freed, I made for
the bedroom door and the front of the apartment, stumbling and
staggering on fear-weakened legs.

One of the dim-shining pink things barred my way at the very threshold,
and the others were closing in behind, as if for a sudden rush. I flung
my right fist with all my strength and weight. The being bobbed back
unresistingly before my smash, like a rubber toy floating through water.
I plunged past, reached the entry and fumbled for the knob of the outer
door.

They were all about me then, their rubbery palms fumbling at my
shoulders, my elbows, my pajama jacket. They would have dragged me down
before I could negotiate the lock. A racking shudder possessed me and
seemed to flick them clear. Then I stumbled against a stand, and purely
by good luck my hand fell upon a bamboo walking-stick. I yelled again,
in truly hysterical fierceness, and laid about me as with a whip. My