“Well, that’s what is wanted--a good scent, and probably a bit of feeling before you’re through with it.” He cleared his throat. “Now, Lynwood, somewhere in the Gunroom is a piece of bread on the deck. Between you and the bread is a trail of Angostura bitters--pungent, so as to make it easy. You’ve got to find the bread by scent and pick it up with your mouth. No feeling with your hands, mind you. Put his nose on the trail, someone.” Hands seized John’s head and thrust it downwards. “Got it? Smell it?” “Not yet.” “Give him a sniff at the bottle.... Got it now?” “Yes.” “Right. Wait for the order to commence.... Stand by. Go!” John began to crawl along the floor. They were shouting at him to go faster. “Get a move on. Good dog. Good dog. ---- ----! the beggar isn’t trying. Let him have it, Howdray.” A cane sang through the air and fell upon John’s legs, sang and fell again. The blood ran to his head. The smell of corticine and dust sickened him. The blows were falling rapidly now. Someone other than Howdray seized a stick and sent the pain shooting through John’s body. He saw now the reason for this creeping position--the excellence of the target it provided. If he could but regain the scent and get to the end of it! But the scent was gone, and he could not steady himself. The weight of his body on his hands was making his wrists ache. The noise was deafening. On his palms the dust seemed inches thick. When he tried to rise, they thrust him down again.... Behind the bandage on his eyes was scarlet blindness, and he was visited by a sense of the desperate impotence of the blind. The words of those shouting above him conveyed no clear meaning to him now. They were giving him guidance, he thought. There was a medley of cries: “Port! Starboard!... He doesn’t know his port from his starboard hand.” A stick fell again. “Give him a chance, Howdray. Still a moment; I’ll put him on the trail.” This was Tintern’s voice. But help was unavailing. Perhaps some foot had extinguished the trail; at any rate, even with Tintern’s guidance, John could not detect the scent. He groped forward to no purpose. Banford-Smith, sliding from the table, stood unintentionally on his fingers, causing him so much pain that, though he was now too bitter to cry out, he reeled from his track. A moment later his hand touched something wet--perhaps the blood from beneath his crushed finger-nail, perhaps no more than Driss’s ink. He neither knew nor cared. In his head, which he dared not raise from the ground, it seemed that fire was burning. His temples and his eyes were throbbing as if they would burst. He paused bewildered, and instantly sticks fell on him again.... It would never, never end. Perhaps he was going to faint. He wished he might. That might end it for the evening at least. That might end it all.