He felt then seized with an intense weariness. He had known that he was,
long ago, physically tired, but excitement had kept that at bay. Now
quite instantly as though a spring in the middle of his back had broken,
he collapsed. He sank down there on the floor where he was, and all
huddled up, his head hanging forward into his knees, he slept. He had a
moment of conscious subjective rebellion when something cried to him:
"Don't surrender. Keep awake. It is part of his plan that you should
sleep here. You are surrendering to _him_."
And from long misty distances he seemed to hear himself reply:
"I don't care what happens any more. They can do what they like. . . .
They can do what they like. . . ."
And almost at once he was conscious that they were summoning him. A tall
thin figure, like an old German drawing, with wild hair, set mouth,
menacing eye like Baldung's "Saturnus," stood before him and pointed the
way into vague misty space. Other figures were moving about him, and he
could see as his eyes grew stronger, that a vast multitude of naked
persons were sliding forward like pale lava from a volcano down a steep
precipitous slope.
As they moved there came from them a shuddering cry like the tremor of
the ground beneath his feet.
"Not there! Not there!" Harkness cried, and Saturnus answered, "Not yet!
You have not been judged."
Almost instantly judgment followed--judgment in a narrow dark passage
that rocked backward and forward like the motion of a boat at sea. The
passage was dark, but on either side of its shaking walls were cries and
shouts and groans and piteous wails, and clouds of smoke poured through,
as into a tunnel, blinding the eyes and filling the nostrils with a
horrible stench.
No figure could be seen, but a voice, strong and menacing, could be
heard, and Harkness knew that it was himself the voice was addressing.
His naked body, slippery with sweat, the acrid smoke blinding him, the
voices deafening him, the rocking of the floor bewildering him, he felt
desperately that he must clear his mind to answer the charges brought
against him.
The voice was clear and calm: "On February 2, 1905, your friend Richard
Hentley was accused in the company of many people during his absence, of
having ill-treated his wife while in Florence. You knew that this was
totally untrue and could have given evidence to that effect, but from
cowardice you let the moment pass and your friend's position was
seriously damaged. What have you to say in your defence?"
The thick smoke rolled on. The walls tottered. The cries gathered in
anguish.
"On March 13, 1911, you wired to your sisters in America that you were
ill in bed when you were in perfect health, because you wished to stay
for a week longer in London in order to attend some races. What have you
to say in your defence?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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