He had tapped it rapidly, while the guard was at the far end of the corridor into which the solitary cells opened.
As I say, he had tapped the message very rapidly.
And now behold! Between the first tap and the second I was off and away among the stars, clad in fleecy garments, touching each star as I passed in my pursuit of the formul? that would explain the last mystery of life. And, as before, I pursued the quest for centuries.
Then came the summons, the stamp of the hoof of doom, the exquisite disruptive agony, and again I was back in my cell in San Quentin.
It was the second tap of Ed Morrell’s knuckle.
The interval between it and the first tap could have been no more than a fifth of a second.
And yet, so unthinkably enormous was the extension of time to me, that in the course of that fifth of a second I had been away star-roving for long ages.
Now I know, my reader, that the foregoing seems all a farrago.
I agree with you. It is farrago.
It was experience, however.
It was just as real to me as is the snake beheld by a man in delirium tremens.
Possibly, by the most liberal estimate, it may have taken Ed Morrell two minutes to tap his question.
Yet, to me, ?ons elapsed between the first tap of his knuckle and the last.
No longer could I tread my starry path with that ineffable pristine joy, for my way was beset with dread of the inevitable summons that would rip and tear me as it jerked me back to my strait-jacket hell.
Thus my ?ons of star-wandering were ?ons of dread.
And all the time I knew it was Ed Morrell’s knuckle that thus cruelly held me earth-bound.
I tried to speak to him, to ask him to cease.
But so thoroughly had I eliminated my body from my consciousness that I was unable to resurrect it.
My body lay dead in the jacket, though I still inhabited the skull.
In vain I strove to will my foot to tap my message to Morrell.
I reasoned I had a foot. And yet, so thoroughly had I carried out the experiment, I had no foot.
Next—and I know now that it was because Morrell had spelled his message quite out—I pursued my way among the stars and was not called back.
After that, and in the course of it, I was aware, drowsily, that I was falling asleep, and that it was delicious sleep.
From time to time, drowsily, I stirred—please, my reader, don’t miss that verb—I STIRRED.
I moved my legs, my arms.
I was aware of clean, soft bed linen against my skin.
I was aware of bodily well-being.
Oh, it was delicious!
As thirsting men on the desert dream of splashing fountains and flowing wells, so dreamed I of easement from the constriction of the jacket, of cleanliness in the place of filth, of smooth velvety skin of health in place of my poor parchment-crinkled hide.
But I dreamed with a difference, as you shall see.
I awoke.
Oh, broad and wide awake I was, although I did not open my eyes.
And please know that in all that follows I knew no surprise whatever.
Everything was the natural and the expected.
I was I, be sure of that.
But I was not Darrell Standing.
Darrell Standing had no more to do with the being I was than did Darrell Standing’s parchment-crinkled skin have aught to do with the cool, soft skin that was mine.
Nor was I aware of any Darrell Standing—as I could not well be, considering that Darrell Standing was as yet unborn and would not be born for centuries.
But you shall see.
I lay with closed eyes, lazily listening.
From without came the clacking of many hoofs moving orderly on stone flags.
From the accompanying jingle of metal bits of man-harness and steed-harness I knew some cavalcade was passing by on the street beneath my windows.
Also, I wondered idly who it was.
From somewhere—and I knew where, for I knew it was from the inn yard—came the ring and stamp of hoofs and an impatient neigh that I recognized as belonging to my waiting horse.
Came steps and movements—steps openly advertised as suppressed with the intent of silence and that yet were deliberately noisy with the secret intent of rousing me if I still slept.
I smiled inwardly at the rascal’s trick.
“Pons,” I ordered, without opening my eyes, “water, cold water, quick, a deluge.
I drank over long last night, and now my gullet scorches.”
“And slept over long to-day,” he scolded, as he passed me the water, ready in his hand.
I sat up, opened my eyes, and carried the tankard to my lips with both my hands. And as I drank I looked at Pons.