After an eternity I got to my feet from the doubled-up position I had fallen in. My ears were singing, and I should have felt dizzy if there had been any light. Strange how many sensations depend on light for their realisation. I stumbled against things in my path. Yet there was no sound of any sort, and I suddenly realised that I was following nothing. The figure that had struck me was gone. Only two things I was certain of—there was a secret passage, and two figures had passed me, not one.
I stopped for a moment at the marble bench to recover my equilibrium. What a fool I was making of myself, to be sure, prowling around in the night like a school-boy, looking for impossible adventures.
A step, quite near me, interrupted—I rose, and waited in the shadow of a tree. Stealthily the step came closer, a slinking, soft-footed step. I saw the fellow dimly outlined before me. He was a big man, bigger than I. The rose scratches stung on my face and hands. I was very quiet, and so was he. It was so dark, I could see him only indistinctly. I got ready to jump on him if he came any closer. I saw him stop, and knew he had seen me. Suddenly he had me by the shoulders, and I spun around and landed in the path. I struck back, took a blow on the face, stumbled and fell, caught at his legs, got him fairly around the knees, and with a quick jerk heaved him sideways into a dim mass of bushes on the other side of the path. I hoped they were rose bushes.
I was well winded, and I knew he must be, too. I counted five slowly before I got to my feet. He was just struggling up when I reached him again. I got his neck in the crook of my elbow, and dragged him toward the castle. He was choking too much to make any outcry, and I had caught him too suddenly for him to do much else. His hands tore at my arm frantically. It was not far. As I reached the steps he got me by the ankle, and we went down in a heap, but I never let go my hold of his throat. I knew that if I lost that he would have me, since he was heavier than I. He must be got up those steps and into the light. We struggled desperately, yet, somehow, though we were both wrenching at each other, step by step we were getting up to the balcony. The man had become impossible to handle, and I should never have managed it if at the last he had not almost pushed me before him. Apparently he wanted to go into the castle as much as I. We rolled along the balustrade a few steps, and then he picked me off my feet, and ran, half dragging me with him. I kicked at him, and we fell again. In the scuffle I got away from him a step or two. The everlasting darkness was on my nerves. I wanted to see. He caught me again, before we reached the French window, hurled me through it, into the room, and against the leg of a table.
I was up again almost as soon as I was down, and at him, but I did not strike. Instead, I sank back breathless on the nearest chair.
The man was John.
For a few moments we grunted and gurgled at each other in unison. I ached all over. My face was scratched. My knees were bleeding, my chest was constricted from the violence of my efforts John was almost as badly off. He sat opposite me, staring dazedly.
“You’re a tough old nut to crack,” he said, finally, “I thought you were another of them.”
“Sorry,” my words jerked out with difficulty, “one of them came out of that secret passage. I was leaning against the door, and he fell over me, and then chucked me into some rose bushes. All scratched up. I thought he was coming back. Wanted a look at him in the light.”
“Same here,” he said, “what did the paper say?”