perpendicular. His head rushed through half a world of black,
fury-space. His toes and finger-tips were infinite miles behind. A sound
of rushing waters filled his ears, like deathly waterfalls stamping the
life from his bursting head. Black blurred figures, nebulous and
meaningless, loomed up before his face.

"Hit in the head--you're done for."

"Hit in the head--you're done for."

The inadequate thought chased through his brain.

"What a pity, what a shame; you might have been so happy, later on."

"What a pity, what a shame; you might have been so happy later on."

He was conscious that it was a foolishly futile thought at a supreme
moment.

His life seemed pouring out of his head, his vitality was running down
as a motor engine, suddenly cut off. He felt death descending upon him
with appalling swiftness. Where would the world go to? And what next?

He was afraid.

Then, with a tremendous effort he turned his thoughts on God, and waited
for death.

He was swimming in that black fury-sea that was neither wet nor
clinging. He was made of lead in a universe that weighed nothing. He was
sinking, sinking. In vain he struggled. The dark, dry waters closed over
him....

* * * * *

Still the waterfalls pounded in his ears, and still the dry waves reeled
before his eyes, and under his head a pool, sticky and warm.

What was that? This time surely something tangible and real moving
towards him. With a supreme effort he tried to jerk his body into
moving. His left leg moved. It moved wearily; but still it moved. His
left arm too.

What was this?

The right arm and leg were gone, gone.

The rest of him was flabbergasted at the horror of the discovery.

No, not gone! They were there. But they would not move. He could not
even _try_ to move them. He could not so much as _feel_ them.

Then he awoke to the horror of the thing.

His right side was dead!

* * * * *

The shape was really alive. It resolved itself into a man crawling in
the darkness to his rescue.

"You need not bother about me, I'm done for. Get back into the trench."

He had a feeling that though he meant his lips to frame these words, he
was in reality saying something quite different. It was an exhausting
effort to speak.

The form asked him questions in a fierce whisper. He had not the
strength to understand or answer.

Very slowly and cautiously he was dragged over th