Page:Life Amongst the Modocs.djvu/68



from under his one and dreadful eye, that seemed to be burning a hole in my head.

The one-eyed black villain knew very well he wa& torturing me. He took a delight in it. Understand he had not said a word. I had not lifted my eyes.

At last he hoisted his black fat hand to his black thick head and turned away. I walked with an effort out into the street. This man had taken my strength he had absorbed me into his strong animal body.

Here is a subject that I do not understand at all. I will only state a fact. There are men that exhaust me. There are men that if they come into a room and talk to me, or even approach closely, take my strength from me more speedily, and as certainly, as if I spent my force climbing a hill. There are men that I cannot endure; their presence is to me an actual physical pain. I have tried to overcome this in vain. I have found myself dodging men in the street, hiding around the corner, or flying like a pick-pocket into a crowd to escape them. Good honest men are they some of them, no doubt, yet they use me up ; they absorb, exhaust me ; they would kill me dead in less than a week.

I stole away from the stable and reached the main street. A tide of people poured up and down, and across from other streets, as strong as in a town of the East. The white people on the side walks, the Chinese and mules in the main street. Not a woman in sight, not a child, not a boy. People turned to look at me as at something new and out of place.