I caught, somehow, a train for Calais, I stumbled onto a boat there in
a driving rain, and walked the deck in it all night. I travelled
blindly to Oxford and tramped through soggy, steaming lanes, through
sheets of drizzle, through icy runnels and marshy grass. For hours and
hours I walked, muttering and cursing, my teeth chattering in my head,
my brain on fire, my feet slushing in my soaking boots. I did not know
clearly where I was, I did not know why I was walking nor where, but
walk I must, like the convicts on the treadmill. Something laughed
horribly in the air just behind me and said like a parrot, over and
over again:

"We expect the child in June! We expect the child in June! We expect
the child--"

I hit out with my blackthorn stick. "Damn you and your child!" I cried
wildly, and fell face forward in a marshy puddle.

CHAPTER XIX

FATE LANDS ME ON THE ROCKS

Long periods of time passed; days perhaps, perhaps years. Some one, I
know, turned with difficulty on his side, so that the puddle did not
choke his mouth and nostrils. Some one, by and by, felt something warm
and wet and rough against his icy cheek and was grateful for the
feeling. Some one was reading to me from a book which described the
sensations of a man lifted up and carried in a broken balloon that
could only ride a foot from the ground, bumping and jarring horribly,
and I was that man, in some strange way, and at the same time I was
the illustrations that accompanied the tale. I read the story myself
finally, aloud and very shrilly, as that unfortunate man bumped along.
After days of this cold journey, the man fell out of the balloon into
a warm lake and was delighted with the change, for his very soul was
chilled--until he realised, at first dimly, that the water was growing
hotter every minute and that the intention was to torture him to
death! I was that man, moreover, and I kicked and screamed wildly,
though every motion in the boiling water was agony. Just at the point
when my breath was failing and my heart slowed, they turned off the
water in the lake from a tap, and as it slowly receded, I was safe
again, and knew I could fall asleep.

Long I slept, and dreamed inexpressibly, and then I would feel the
insidious lapping of the warm lake, rejoice a moment in the comforting
heat, then realise with horror that the temperature was rising slowly
but surely, and the inferno would begin all over again. Every joint
and muscle was