n and I was to all outward appearances wide awake, I was
like a man hovering on the borderland of sleep. My senses were gradually
coming back to me; the strength of my brain was reasserting itself, and
by some strange process, how arrived at it is impossible for me to say,
the hold Pharos had obtained upon me was slowly weakening. Then it was
as if I suddenly awoke to find myself standing fully dressed in my own
room. My bed had been slept in, and one glance out of my window showed
me that it was early morning. And yet I had not the least recollection
of having been in bed or of having made my toilet. Then the scene with
Pharos, and the awful knowledge if had given rise to, came back to me,
and I remembered how he had pointed his hand at me, and how I had fallen
asleep before him. Here was the logical explanation of the whole thing.
It was plain that after I had become unconscious, Pharos had caused me
to be carried to my room and put to bed. This, then, I argued, must be
the morning following. Now that the effect he had produced had worn off,
there was still time for me to do what I had originally intended. Having
arrived at this decision I opened my door and went downstairs. A curious
silence prevailed, not only in the house, but outside. I stopped on the
first landing and looked out of the window. So far as I could see there
were no cabs or carriages in the street, no riders in the Row, no
children with their nurses upon the pavements, and yet the old
Chippendale timepiece in the hall told me that the hour was considerably
past nine o'clock. A curious feeling of drowsiness still possessed me,
but it was fast leaving me, and, what was more, leaving me filled with
but one purpose in life, which was to seek out the authorities and
proclaim to them the devilry of Pharos and the part I had myself played
in his abominable wickedness. After that I would wait for Fate to say
what should become of me.

Putting on my hat I opened the front door and stepped out into the
street. At any cost I would endeavour to reach the Home Office, and tell
my story there, before Pharos could prevent me. With this end in view I
hurried toward Piccadilly, intending to take a cab there and so save
time. But when I set out I had not the least notion of the misery that
had befallen London, nor of anything that had happened since Pharos had
pointed his finger at me. In my wildest dreams I had never imagined such
a picture of desolation as that which