"Then you have yourself felt something of this fear," I
interrupted; "for you said just now—"
"I do not mean physical fear," he replied; "for that is more or
less a question of nerves and will, and it is imagination that
makes men cowards. I mean an absolute fear, a physical
fear one might call it, that reaches the soul and withers every
power one possesses."
He said a lot more, for he, too, was wholly unable to stem the
torrent once it broke loose; but I have forgotten it; or, rather,
mercifully I did not hear it, for I stopped my ears and only heard
the occasional words when I took my fingers out to find if he had
come to an end. In due course he did come to an end, and there we
left it, for I then knew positively what he already knew: that
somewhere here in the night, and w
