is a
magistrate? Let the man go this moment! fiends in human shape! I'll have
you brought to justice!' I heard myself shouting wildly, as I flung
myself upon the wretched sufferer, interposing between him and the knife.
It was something like this that I said. My horror and rage were
delirious, and carried me beyond all attempt at control.

Through it all I heard a shout of laughter rising from everybody round.
The lecturer laughed; the audience roared with that sound of horrible
mockery which had driven me out of myself in my first experience. All
kinds of mocking cries sounded around me. 'Let him a little blood to calm
him down.' 'Let the fool have a taste of it himself, doctor.' Last of all
came a voice mingled with the cries of the sufferer whom I was trying to
shield, 'Take him instead; curse him! take him instead.' I was bending
over the man with my arms outstretched, protecting him, when he gave vent
to this cry. And I heard immediately behind me a shout of assent, which
seemed to come from the two strong young men with whom I had been
standing, and the sound of a rush to seize me. I looked round, half mad
with terror and rage; a second more and I should have been strapped on
the table too. I made one wild bound into the midst of the crowd; and
struggling among the arms stretched out to catch me, amid the roar of the
laughter and cries--fled--fled wildly, I knew not whither, in panic and
rage and horror which no words could describe. Terror winged my feet. I
flew, thinking as little of whom I met, or knocked down, or trod upon in
my way, as the others did at whom I had wondered a little while ago.

No distinct impression of this headlong course remains in my mind, save
the sensation of mad fear such as I had never felt before. I came to
myself on the edge of the dark valley which surrounded the town. All my
pursuers had dropped off before that time; and I have the recollection of
flinging myself upon the ground on my face in the extremity of fatigue
and exhaustion. I must have lain there undisturbed for some time. A few
steps came and went, passing me; but no one took any notice, and the
absence of the noise and crowding gave me a momentary respite. But in my
heat and fever I got no relief of coolness from the contact of the soil.
I might have flung myself upon a bed of hot ashes, so much was it unlike
the dewy cool earth which I expected, upon which one can always throw
one's self with a sensation of repose. Pres