Above me sat Garlicke, rifle in hand, breaking the clean outline of the ridge against the sky. The rifle was silhouetted thin and delicate as a needle against the brightness. A spurt of blue smoke burst from the muzzle, and the crack of it rang across the hollow. I heard a thud as the bullet struck the mass of hungry desire behind me, and glanced again quickly, hoping for effect. A red weal shone upon one of the horny eyelids. He stopped, blinking stupidly, and half-stunned by the shock. But the ball had not penetrated, and with a puzzled swinging of the wounded neck he resumed his scrambling, ungainly gait.

Still a hundred yards, and my eyes grew dizzy. A red mist seemed to close upon them, which, lifting now and again, showed me surrounding objects defined as on the slides of a magic lantern. My breath rasped with such a wheezing whistle that I looked wonderingly to see whence the sound could come. My arms were like wire ropes, strained to the breaking. My legs shuffled painfully under me. I felt the strength going out from me as water leaks from an unbunged cask. The sound of Garlicke’s shots struck fainter and fainter upon my ears. I stumbled again, and only saved myself from plunging forward by an instinctive straightening of my shoulders. The sunlight was shadowing to a night—a black darkness that could be felt.

Chapter XVIII, pages 301-302