“Still laughing, he made some light reply and left me. I lay in my cot. I was filled with forebodings. The heat was intense, and I must have dropped off to sleep. I dreamed horrible, troublesome, weird dreams. I awoke, bathed in a cold sweat. I felt sure something was wrong, that some one was calling for me. I got to my feet and left my tent. No one was in sight. I tried to laugh at my premonition. I bitterly regretted that I had allowed my friend to override my persuasions.
“Hurrying as much as was possible, I started toward the clearing. My wound throbbed and ached. It tortured me. I seemed weighed down. Once I stumbled in my eagerness. It was horrible. Like a nightmare.
“I must have covered half the distance when I heard a scream. What a shriek it was! I wake up nights even now hearing it. It was unrecognizable. Like some unearthly animal. Just that one scream. My stick hindered me. I threw it away and ran.
“My blood was cold in my veins, but I felt not one twinge of pain in my foot. At last I came to the edge of the clearing. And there—God, it makes me sick even now to think of it.”
The speaker paused; his face was chalky, and he shuddered and buried his face in his hands. I think he was crying.
Outside, the wind still howled, dully, monotonously, eerily. Sometimes it would shriek and scream. Then my friend’s voice again—level, dead, cold.
“I looked out; I saw Sigmund standing on the sand. I can see him as plainly as though he were here now. His face was ashen. He was looking down. At his feet were the fragments of the glass box he had made.
“He was holding out his hands, looking at them. They were gray. And they writhed and twisted, but his arms were still. He was not even trembling. My tongue clove to the roof of my mouth, and my throat was dry—but at last I called to him.