"The forrard door's jammed, it won't open."
"Hammer it," came the captain's voice. "Get a top-maul."
An age or two went by, while Felton lay imprisoned in the tube, holding his breath, and immersed in water. Then, faintly as the voices, came the sound of a heavy hammer on the walls of the tube:
"Clang-clang, clang-clang."
Felton awoke in his berth, as wet with perspiration as though still immersed in that tube. The gun-room orderly tapped at his door.
"Eight bells, sir," he said.
"All right," he answered. "Eight bells," he murmured to himself. "I heard the first four of them—let's see—about twelve hours ago. Twelve hours of experience between the fourth and fifth strokes. How long does a dream take? Darn a dream, anyhow."
[ABSOLUTE ZERO]
He was not exactly an imbecile—merely feeble-minded, unable to remember his past, or even the events of a year gone by—an elderly man who loafed about the studio building, a man with few wants and no vices, who picked up a scanty living by cleaning up studios for the artists, and occasionally posing for them. We called him Old Bill; he did not know his last name, and was subject to fainting spells.