The only wonder is that I wasn't killed outright, as would have happened had my antagonist been as tall as I. But enormously strong as the Dumpling was, my superior height saved my life. He had struck at me with a life-preserver heavily loaded with lead, but being many inches less in stature than I, he had struck short. Hence the blow which, had it taken me directly on the head, as intended, would have made a very batter-pudding of my brains, did no more than inflict a nasty skin-wound, more of a graze than a gash, above one temple. Even had the blow fallen directly on my shoulder, I should in all probability have been disabled for the rest of my life. Luckily for me, however, the loaded life-preserver barely scraped, instead of smashing, my shoulder-blade, and though for the moment I fell--dazed and blinded by my own blood--to my knees, my hurts were by no means serious. As I lay, half stupefied by the suddenness of the attack and by the blow, yet not too stupefied to forget to shield my head, lest my antagonist should strike again, I was seized around the waist, by arms so abnormally long and strong that they were more like those of a gorilla than of a man, and was carried swiftly to the cellar. To say that unconsciously I feigned unconsciousness may seem a queer way of describing what followed; but it is a fact that I lay, apparently as lifeless, on the cellar floor, as if I had been a spider, shamming death in the presence of an enemy. And this I did automatically as far as I can remember, without knowing why I did it. "I hope he isn't dead, poor devil!" said the Dumpling aloud, to himself, and in a tone of voice which, in view of the fact that my death was the fact he had a few moments before had in view, and had, indeed, done his best to compass, struck me as unnecessarily anxious. His methods reminded me somewhat of modern warfare, in which we first do everything in our power to put a bullet into a man, by means of a gun, and then do everything in our power, by means of good surgery, to get it out. It always seems to me that--since once we have wounded a man, our chief anxiety is to restore the _status quo_ by healing his wound--the desired end might be attained, and the _status quo_ established, by means considerably less expensive to ourselves and undoubtedly less painful to him. "I hope he isn't dead," muttered the Dumpling again, laying me down with surprising gentleness. "It's one of the servants, I suppose, who has been ordered to be on watch all night in case there's a second attempt to break into the house, and I have no quarrel with _him_."