For an instant he seemed to
see this unnatural contest between a dead intelli-
gence and a breathing mechanism only as a spectator
--such fancies are in dreams; then he regained
his identity almost as if by a leap forward into his
body, and the straining automaton had a direct-
ing will as alert and fierce as that of its hideous
antagonist.
But what mortal can cope with a creature of his
dream? The imagination creating the enemy is al-
ready vanquished; the combat's result is the com-
bat's cause. Despite his struggles--despite his
strength and activity, which seemed wasted in a
void, he felt the cold fingers close upon his throat.
Borne backward to the earth, he saw above him the
dead and drawn face within a hand's-breadth of his
own, and then all was black. A sound as of the beat-
ing of distant drums--a murmur of swarming
voices, a sharp, far cry signing all to silence, and
Halpin Frayser dreamed that he was dead.
4
A warm, clear night had been followed by a
morning of drenching fog. At about the middle of
the afternoon of the preceding day a little whiff of
light vapour--a mere thickening of the atmos-
phere, the ghost of a cloud--had been observed
clinging to the western side of Mount St. Helena,
away up along the barren altitudes near the sum-
mit. It was so thin, so diaphanous, so like a fancy
made visible, that one would have said: 'Look
quickly! in a moment it will be gone.
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