(continued)

"Cavor!"

"Yes?"

"Where are we?"

"How should I know?"

"Are we dead?"

"What nonsense!"

"They've got us, then!"

He made no answer but a grunt.  The lingering traces of the poison seemed to make him oddly irritable.

"What do you mean to do?"

"How should I know what to do?"

"Oh, very well!" said I, and became silent.  Presently, I was roused from a stupor.  "O Lord!" I cried;  "I wish you'd stop that buzzing!"

We lapsed into silence again, listening to the dull confusion of noises like the muffled sounds of a street or factory that filled our ears.  I could make nothing of it, my mind pursued first one rhythm and then another, and questioned it in vain.  But after a long time I became aware of a new and sharper element, not mingling with the rest but standing out, as it were, against that cloudy background of sound.  It was a series of relatively very little definite sounds, tappings and rubbings, like a loose spray of ivy against a window or a bird moving about upon a box.  We listened and peered about us, but the darkness was a velvet pall.  There followed a noise like the subtle movement of the wards of a well-oiled lock.  And then there appeared before me, hanging as it seemed in an immensity of black, a thin bright line.

"Look!" whispered Cavor very softly.

"What is it?"

"I don't know."

We stared.

The thin bright line became a band, and broader and paler.  It took upon itself the quality of a bluish light falling upon a white-washed wall.  It ceased to be parallel-sided;  it developed a deep indentation on one side.  I turned to remark this to Cavor, and was amazed to see his ear in a brilliant illumination—all the rest of him in shadow.  I twisted my head round as well as my bonds would permit.  "Cavor," I said, "it's behind!"

His ear vanished—gave place to an eye!

65