“Nothing.”
“Nothing,” he echoed, and the word spread like a dark and darkening mask across the face of all things.
And then as if to mark the meaning of the word, it seemed to him that the whole universe began to move inward upon itself, faster and faster, until at last with an incredible haste it rushed together. He resisted this collapse in vain, and with a sense of overwhelmed effort. The white light of God and the whirling colours of the universe, the spaces between the stars—it was as if an unseen fist gripped them together. They rushed to one point as water in a clepsydra rushes to its hole. The whole universe became small, became a little thing, diminished to the size of a coin, of a spot, of a pinpoint, of one intense black mathematical point, and—vanished. He heard his own voice crying in the void like a little thing blown before the wind: “But will my courage endure?” The question went unanswered. Not only the things of space but the things of time swept together into nothingness. The last moment of his dream rushed towards the first, crumpled all the intervening moments together and made them one. It seemed to Mr. Huss that he was still in the instant of insensibility. That sound of the breaking string was still in his ears:—Ploot....
It became part of that same sound which came before the vision....
He was aware of a new pain within him; not that dull aching now, but a pain keen and sore. He gave a fluttering gasp.
“Quick,” said a voice. “He is coming to!”
“He’ll not wake for hours,” said a second voice.
“His mouth and eyes!”
He lifted his eyelids as one lifts lead. He found himself looking into the intelligent but unsympathetic face of Sir Alpheus Mengo, he tried to comprehend his situation but he had forgotten how he got to it, he closed his eyes and sank back consciously and wilfully towards insensibility....