Page:The Man Who Died Twice (1924).djvu/68

 With cords he could not see. Now he could hear

Those drums again, and they were coming nearer,

Still muffled within the same unyielding cloud

Of sound and fire, which had somewhere within it

A singing flame that he might not for long

Endure, should such a mocking hour as this

Be the one hour of all when after years

Of smouldering it should leap at him and scorch him.

He felt his fingers clutching hungrily

At nothing, as the fingers of one drowning

Would clutch at seaweed floating where he sank;

And he could feel the pounding of those drums

Like iron upon the fibre of his brain.

His feeble heart was leaping, and a cold

Invisible hand was heavy on his throat—

As if in mercy, if it need be so,