Presently we came to shore; and they tilted me up, as if I were a board, and stood me on end, so that I could not help laughing. But even then, in the most extraordinary way, _cold_ air seemed to come from my lungs. Some one, with a whisper and nudge, as if to fire my interest, pointed out to me a boat, Rampick’s, pulled up on the beach, its sides gleaming wet in the moonshine. I crowed and acquiesced, very knowing about nothing, as they seemed to wish me to be; and then, having my legs pointed out to me, tried seriously to remonstrate with and command them, for they were in the most drunken condition. I supposed, indeed, that they were quite detached from me, until, between Harry’s and Jacob’s support, I set them moving; and then I understood that they still acknowledged my control, and I was gigglingly interested in them, looking down on them idiotically as they went splayed, and giving, and pulling themselves respectable over the hard. They found the Gap a tough business; but once up and over it, the descent beyond appeared a matter of moments. While I was still chuckling to Harry, and failing in words to express to him what the joke was, there close before our faces was the door of number three, the Playstow; and I gaped and grinned and delightedly pointed out my discovery to my friends. While I was yet in the act, it opened hurriedly to a great surge of light; and I saw the figures of Uncle Jenico and Mr. Sant, standing blowzed and flurried, in the midst of the furnace. Suddenly they moved and came towards us; and at that I tried to hail them with a shout of laughter; but, instead, staggered and slipped down into their midst. It was very restful, after all; and I thought I would stop where I was. But the jangle of many voices worried me, and I closed my eyes. Then, instantly, as it seemed to me, I was lifted up, and borne aloft, and smothered in down, or snow, which embraced me very cold and peaceful. The light sunk low, and the voices to a whisper. I was quite content, so long as they would leave me packed there frozen. But presently I was conscious that this was not to be. Something, by creeping degrees, tickled, and bit, and stung at my feet. The poison rose, giving me intolerable pain. I moaned and cried; and, at the sound of my voice, they lifted me up and poured fire down my throat. The rising and the falling heat met, it seemed, at my heart, and I believed it was consuming. I struggled to beat out the flames, to reproach these demons with their cruelty--and then in a moment, in a blazing swerve to consciousness, I saw them. They, or their shadows, leapt gigantic on the ceiling; furious, gnashing caricatures of my uncle, Mrs. Puddephatt, Mr. Sant, Fancy-Maria. A furnace glared and reverberated behind them. They sprang and held me down, and rasped my limbs till they crackled and smoked. From prayers and anguish I passed to frenzied defiance. If they would torture me so pitilessly, I would of myself stultify their efforts. I felt the