That he was shocked into unconsciousness is clear, and that his body continued its ordinary functions unconcerned and guided he knew not by what mysterious power.
He woke, as it were, still jarred from shock, and aching throughout him, to find himself steadily tramping along a road.
The objective world surged in on him. He put up his hand to ward off the huge green seas that came lolloping along to overwhelm him.
Riding the charging billows were a host of immense black ogres, dreadful in their impassivity, and with blind eyes, who yet had seen him and were set on his destruction.
Then he resumed himself. The billows were the hills; the careering ogres the row of bee-hive stacks dumped peacefully on the rise upon his right.
He could not have been unconscious many minutes, for the sun still hung on the crest of the hill much where he had seen it last; but he was walking along the road on which he had fallen and must so have walked during his unconsciousness, seeing that he was now perhaps a quarter of a mile from the spot where he had jumped, and proceeding in the opposite direction to that in which the lorry had been travelling. His face was towards the sea and the village through which he had recently passed, his back to the Weald.
On his left was a wood, darkened by firs. A dusty motor-bicycle lay up against the bank.
Ernie was aware of the machine, as one is aware of something in a book. It was not real to him: he was not real to himself. Indeed he was conscious of one thing only: that some power was guiding him and bidding him keep quiet.
He did not attempt to take control. His brain, except as a mirror which reflected passing objects, was passive; and he was content that this should be so.
Dimly he wondered if he was dead. Then he realized that the question had no interest for him, and he retired once more into the No Man's Land of the hypnoidal state.