But a moment later, under the lamp-post, he was off his feet again. Up in front of him swarmed a man-monkey of the sailor-breed trailing a rope. The crowd roared gloriously, its rage changing to delight.
Clasping the iron standard despairingly with legs and arms in a last embrace, he felt hands below pushing him, making him go higher. Then suddenly there came a wrench; the hands loosed him, but his feet did not touch ground. And as his agitated body sought this way and that for the hand-hold or foot-hold it had lost never to find again, I, reading for the last time the scrip of his brain, found the truth fairly lodged there at last:
‘O, you fool! O, you damned fool! O, you silly, damned fool, look what you have done to yourself now!’
And then something happened: something quite unexpected, for which I cannot account; though I have a sort of a fear that I know in what direction the account may hereafter be found.
I followed him into those last moments—for his last moments they proved to be—with a breathless interest, which at least told me that though he had tried me much, I was not as tired of him as, for my own peace, I would have liked to be. And up to the last hitch, I still wondered whether so agile an executant of quick turns would not manage even then to escape from his enemies. His enemies, I say. But my wonder now is whether his last escape has not been made from one who, like Davidina, was his faithful though discriminating friend. For when, after the rope had done its work, I looked for him on the spiritual plane, it was to find that he had vanished. And if I, too, must own the truth—I do not know what has become of him.
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:
Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.
Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.
Archaic or variant spelling has been retained.
New original cover art included with this eBook is granted to the public domain.