The sight made me stop and, as I stood there still as a statue, I heard the sounds behind me get louder, as if a big body was feeling and pushing its way between the trees, not so careful now, but trampling and crushing through the interlaced boughs. Then for the first time in my life I knew what it means when they say your hair stands on end. Down at the roots of mine there was a stirring all over my head and my heart! It was banging against my chest, blow after blow, as if it was trying to break a hole.
The sky began to brighten. I got a sort of impression of those cracks in the clouds parting and the moonlight leaking through; but I didn't seem to see it plain, everything in me was turned to terror. The noise behind me was closer and louder and through it I heard a breathing, deep, panting breaths, drawn hard. Then I knew if I turned I could have seen what was following me, seen its awful face, glaring between the branches and its bent body, crouched, ready to spring.
It's hard for me to tell what followed—everything came together and I couldn't see or think. I remember trying to scream, to give one shriek for Babbitts, and no sound coming, and that the thing, as if it knew what I was doing, made a sudden crashing close at my back. The brightness of the sky flashed in my eyes. I saw the clouds broken open, and the moon, big and white, whirling round like a silver plate. I tried to run but the earth rose up in waves and I staggered forward over them, wave after wave, with the moon spinning close to my eyes, and then blackness shutting down like the lid of a box.
The next thing I remember was the sky with clouds all over it and in one place an opening with a little star as big as a pinhead set in the middle. I looked at that star for a long time, having a queer feeling that I was holding on to it and it was pulling me up. Then I felt as if something was helping the star, a strong support under my shoulders that raised me still further, and while I seemed to be struggling out of a darkness like water, I heard Babbitts' voice close to my ear:
"Thank God, she's coming out of it."
I turned my head and there was his face close to mine. A strong yellow light shone on it—afterward I saw it came from a lantern on the ground—and without speaking I looked into his eyes, and had a lovely feeling of rest as if I'd found something I was looking for.
"You're all right?" he said; "you're not hurt?"
"I'm very well, thank you," I said back, and my voice was like a whisper.
The support under my shoulders tightened, drew me up against him, and he bent down and kissed me.
We said no more, but stayed that way, looking at each other. I didn't want to move or speak. I didn't feel anything or care about anything. It seemed like Babbitts and I were the only two people in the whole world, as if there was no world, just us, and all the rest nothing.