“I’ll try to remember you, also!” said Dick to himself.
Weakly he lifted his hands to his neck. It was paining him frightfully, and he seemed to feel marks upon it, as if something had left indelible prints in the flesh.
“I’m not in Fardale,” he thought. “I’m somewhere—somewhere—somewhere far away. Where am I? and how did I get here?”
The pressure on his head prevented him from thinking. He felt to see if an iron band were truly crushing his skull.
He could find nothing of the sort.
“I must get up! I must! I will!”
They laughed and called to him as he lifted himself little by little to his elbow. At last, with his hands on the ground and his body lurched to one side, like a man wounded unto death, he paused, breathing with a horrible, whistling sound.
“Strength—I must have strength!” he thought. “If I give up the least bit, I’ll drop back here and never rise again.”
So he waited until a little more strength came to him. He seemed to summon it by his indomitable and unyielding will.
He heard the rabble chattering about him, but he no longer heeded them.