Randall tried to cry out that he would promise anything they wanted to spare her, but his voice was still silenced-apparently Stoles wanted to hear from Cynthia first. She shook her head. “He’ll do as he thinks wise.”
Stoles smiled. “Fine,” he said. “That was the answer I wanted. You, Mr. Randall-do you promise?”
He wanted to agree, he was about to agree-but Cynthia was saying, “No!” with her eyes. From her expression he knew that her speech was now being blocked. Inside his head, clear as speech, he seemed to hear her say, “It’s a trick, Brain. Don’t promise!”
He kept quiet.
Phipps dug a thumb into his eye. “Answer when you are spoken to!”
He had to squint the injured eye in order to see Cynthia, but her expression still approved; he kept his mouth shut.
Presently Stoles said, “Never mind. Get on with it, gentlemen.”
Printemps stuck the bottle under Cynthia’s nose, held it against her left nostril. “Now!” he directed. Another of them pressed down on her short ribs vigorously, so that her breath was expelled suddenly. She grunted.
“Teddy,” she said, “they’re pulling me apar-Ugh!”
The process had been repeated with the bottle at the other nostril. Randall felt the soft warm hand in his suddenly relax. Printemps held up the bottle with his thumb over its top. “Let’s have the wax,” he said briskly. Having sealed it he passed it over to Phipps.
Stoles jerked a thumb toward the big mirror. “Put them back,” he directed.
Phipps superintended the passing of Cynthia back through the glass, then turned to Stoles. “Couldn’t we give him something to make him remember us?” he inquired.
“Help yourself,” Stoles answered indifferently, as he stood up to go, “but try not to leave any permanent marks.”
“Fine!” Phipps smiled, and hit Randall a backhanded swipe that loosened his teeth. “We’ll be careful!”
He remained conscious through a considerable portion of it, though, naturally, he had no way of judging what proportion. He passed out once or twice, only to come to again under the stimulus of still greater pain. It was the novel way Phipps found of holding a man down without marking him which caused him to pass out for the last time.
He was in a small room, every side of which was a mirror-four walls, floor, and ceiling. Endlessly he was repeated in every direction and every image was himself-selves that hated him but from which there was no escape. “Hit him again!” they yelled-he yelled-and struck himself in the teeth with his closed fist. They-he-cackled.
They were closing in on him and he could not run fast enough. His muscles would not obey him, no matter how urgently he tried. It was because he was handcuffed-handcuffed to the treadmill they had put him on. He was blindfolded, too, and the handcuffs kept him from reaching his eyes. But he had to keep on-Cynthia was at the top of the climb; he had to reach her.
Only, of course, there is no top when you are on a treadmill.
He was terribly tired, but every time he slowed down the least little bit they hit him again. And he was required to count the steps, too, else he got no credit for it-ten thousand ninety-one, ten thousand ninety-two, ten thousand ninety-three, up and down, up and down-if he could only see where he was going.
He stumbled; they clipped him from behind and he fell forward on his face.
When he woke his face was pressed up against something hard and lumpy and cold. He shifted away from it and found that his whole body was stiff. His feet did not work as they should-he investigated by the uncertain light from the window and found that he had dragged the sheet half off the bed and had it tangled around his ankles.
The hard cold object was the steam radiator; he had been huddled in a heap against it. He was beginning to regain his orientation; he was in his own familiar bedroom. He must have walked in his sleep-he hadn’t pulled that stunt since he was a kid! Walked in his sleep, tripped, and smashed his head into the radiator. Must ‘a’ knocked him silly, colder’n a coot-damn lucky he hadn’t killed himself.