eved myself under legal restraint. I imagined that at any moment
I might be taken to court to face some charge lodged against me by the
local police. Every act of those about me seemed to be a part of what,
in police parlance, is commonly called the "Third Degree." The hot
poultices placed upon my feet and ankles threw me into a profuse
perspiration, and my very active association of mad ideas convinced me
that I was being "sweated"--another police term which I had often seen
in the newspapers. I inferred that this third-degree sweating process
was being inflicted in order to extort some kind of a confession,
though what my captors wished me to confess I could not for my life
imagine. As I was really in a state of delirium, with high fever, I had
an insatiable thirst. The only liquids given me were hot saline
solutions. Though there was good reason for administering these, I
believed they were designed for no other purpose than to increase my
sufferings, as part of the same inquisitorial process. But had a
confession been due, I could hardly have made it, for that part of my
brain which controls the power of speech was seriously affected, and
was soon to be further disabled by my ungovernable thoughts. Only an
occasional word did I utter.

Certain hallucinations of hearing, or "false voices," added to my
torture. Within my range of hearing, but beyond the reach of my
understanding, there was a hellish vocal hum. Now and then I would
recognize the subdued voice of a friend; now and then I would hear the
voices of some I believed were not friends. All these referred to me
and uttered what I could not clearly distinguish, but knew must be
imprecations. Ghostly rappings on the walls and ceiling of my room
punctuated unintelligible mumblings of invisible persecutors.

I remember distinctly my delusion of the following day--Sunday. I
seemed to be no longer in the hospital. In some mysterious way I had
been spirited aboard a huge ocean liner. I first discovered this when
the ship was in mid-ocean. The day was clear, the sea apparently calm,
but for all that the ship was slowly sinking. And it was I, of course,
who had created the situation which must turn out fatally for all,
unless the coast of Europe could be reached before the water in the
hold should extinguish the fires. How had this peril overtaken us?
Simply enough: During the night I had in some way--a way still unknown
to me--opened a porthole below the water-line; a