There it was again—there—that was the clear silver of San Giorgio's Campanile, with the deeper tones of Giovanni e Paolo dipping down through the silver, then Santa Maria Formosa dropped in her liquid notes, with, over all, far-flung cadences drifting faintly down on the sea-wind from the Frari until the great dome of the Salute spoke to the sunset, and all the myriad others——
No, it was nothing but Harcourt talking, talking to his mother! That was odd: Harcourt was five miles out at sea, and his mother had been dead for twenty years, he was quite sure.
Ah, he was wrong after all! It was only John Solomon and Sara Helmuth talking together. At that he opened his eyes, caught a faint flicker of light—and remembered.
A violent nausea swept over him, but he conquered it, lying with clenched fists. He recalled what a dying man had once whispered to him aboard the cattle boat—"I wonder what the other place is like?"—and he repeated it over and over in his mind, for it was a good joke.
"I wonder what the other place is like!"
It was his own voice speaking, and he laughed, a dry cackle of a laugh that struck the other voices dead. Where was he?
"I'll lay odds that it's hell——"
Something cool touched his brow and he jerked away sharply, every nerve in his body twinging. Then he realized that the thing was a hand, and heard that queer laughter of his ring out again, though he had not meant to laugh at all.
"Best let 'im be, miss. 'E ought to be waked by now, but 'e'll come up all right-o. Dang it, I don't know as I blames 'im much. It was a mortal bad place."
"Hello, John!" Hammer made a great effort and forced himself to speak. "What are you doing on the other side, as the spiritualists say! Who's that devil got his hand on me? Take him off, darn it!"