whatever was knocking me out was
not affecting him because he had that thing on. I jumped for him with
the idea of taking the bowl off and putting it on my own head. He saw
what I was up to and he fought like a cornered rat, but the blackness
hadn't affected my muscles. I'm a pretty big man, sir, and No. 9764 is
a little runt, and it didn't take me long to get the bowl off his head
and pulled on over mine. As soon as I did that, I seemed to be able to
think clearer. I was sitting on No. 9764 and was ready to tap him with
a persuader if he started anything, but I didn't have to. In a few
minutes he stopped struggling and lay perfectly quiet.

"The lights kept getting dimmer and dimmer until they went out
altogether and the room became pitch dark. It wasn't exactly as if the
lights had gone out, sir; I seemed to know that they were still there
and were burning as bright as ever, but they couldn't penetrate the
blackness in the room, if you understand what I mean."

* * * * *

"I think I do," said Dr. Bird slowly. "It was a good deal as if you
had seen a glass filled with a pale red liquid and someone had dumped
black ink into the fluid and hid the red color. You would know that
the red was still there, but you wouldn't be able to see it through
the black."

"That's exactly what it was like, Doctor; you have described it better
than I can. At any rate, after it got real dark I heard a low whistle
from the roof. No. 9764 made a struggle to get up for a moment and
then lay quiet again. The whistle sounded again and then I heard some
one call 'Caruso.' Everything was quiet for a while and then the same
voice called again and said some stuff in a foreign language that I
couldn't understand. I kept perfectly quiet to see what would happen.

"For about ten minutes the room remained perfectly dark, as I have
said, and all the while I could hear that whining noise. All of a
sudden it began to sound in a lower note and then I could see the
lights again, very dimly and like the black ink you spoke of was
fading out. The note got lower until it stopped altogether, and the
lights came on brighter until they were normal again. Then I heard a
scraping noise on the roof and the noise I had heard at first like a
big electric fan. I looked at the clock. It was two-twenty.

"For a few minutes I wasn't able to collect my wits. When I got up off
of No. 9764 at last he stared at me as though he didn't know