He was
still standing there, listening to voices talking, it seemed, almost in
his ears, yet whose words he could not hear; the vibration of feet that
shook the solid joist against which he had leaned his head, with closed
eyes; the brush of a cloak once, like a whisper, against the very panel
that shut him in. He could attend to nothing else; the rest of the drama
was as nothing to him: he had his business in hand--to keep away from
himself, by the very intentness of his will and determination, the feet
that passed so close.
The climax came in a sudden thump of a pike foot within a yard of his
head, so imminent, that for an instant he thought it was at his own
panel. There followed a splintering sound of a pike-head in the same
place. He understood. They were sounding on the woodwork and piercing
all that rang hollow.... His turn, then, would come immediately.
Talking voices followed the crash; then silence; then the vibration of
feet once more. The strain grew unbearable; his fingers twisted tight in
his rosary, lifted themselves once or twice from the floor edge on which
they were gripped, to tear back the bolts and declare himself. It seemed
to him in those instants a thousand times better to come out of his own
will, rather than to be poked and dragged from his hole like a badger.
In the very midst of such imaginings there came a thumping blow within
three inches of his face, and then silence. He leaned back desperately
to avoid the pike-thrust that must follow, with his eyes screwed tight
and his lips mumbling.
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