WHEN he recovered consciousness it was but to awake to an incomprehensible dream condition. Of his whereabouts he had no notion. An attempt to move caused him such hideous pain in his head as almost to render him again unconscious. His limbs, too, seemed under the control of dream paralysis. He lay for a while co-ordinating his faculties, until he arrived at the definite conviction that he was awake. His eyes rested on ashlars of granite which, as he lay on his left side, continued in a long line; also, cast downwards, they rested on rough grass. Gradually he realized that he was in the open air, that the stones were part of his wall. What he was doing there he could not tell. He felt sick and faint. By an effort of will he moved a leg. The movement revealed unaccustomed stiffness of limb: it also reawakened the torture of his head. Again he stayed motionless. Yes, it was daylight. It was sunlight; some twenty feet further down the wall cast a shadow. Presently over his recovering senses stole an abominable stench. He sniffed, jerking his head to its intolerable agony. Cautiously he lifted his right hand to the seat of pain. His fingers dabbled in something like thick glue. Bringing them down before his eyes, he saw they were covered with coagulated blood. He felt again, and realized, in stupid amazement, that his hair was stuck to a stone. The first thing to be done was to liberate himself. He remembered afterwards that he said: “Let us concentrate on this: nothing else for the moment matters.” He concentrated, and at last, after infinite suffering that made him cry aloud, he freed his hair from its glutinous imprisonment and, spent with the effort, rolled over on the flat of his back and gazed upwards into the blue sky. A faint breeze swept over him. But the breeze was laden with the same abominable stench. As soon as he could gather sufficient physical energy he rose to a sitting posture, supporting himself on his hands, and gazed spellbound and stupefied on a scene of unimaginable disaster. Where once stretched the familiar long-lying homestead, there was nothing but an inchoate mass of stones, from the midst of which eddied and swirled columns of black smoke. And the wind blew the smoke towards him. Looking down, he found himself begrimed by it. He sat forward, staring, and, secure of balance, withdrew his hands and put them up to his brow, seeking a clue to the mystery. Memory, stage after stage, returned. He had been sitting at night with Quong Ho. They had heard a strange noise. They had gone out to discover what it was. Then——? What had happened then? Just a terror of Hell opening—and nothingness. Yes, he remembered. It was dense mist when they went out. Now it was clear, beautifully clear. The sun was shining; but it was low on the horizon; so it must be early morning.