Page:The elephant man and other reminiscences.djvu/164

152 I ran some way from the bungalow before I stopped. I was like a man saved from the scaffold as the very axe was about to drop. There was a gentle air blowing, cool and kindly. Above was a sky of stars, while in the east the faint light of the dawn was appearing behind the Indian village.

For a moment or two I watched the door leading from the bathroom, expecting to see the man with the pick creep out, but the anticipation of the sight was so dread that I turned away and walked to the other side of the bungalow. Here my greatest joy was merely to breathe, for I seemed to have been for hours in a suffocating pit.

The relief did not last for long. I was seized with another panic. Had I killed the man? I felt compelled to return to the abhorred room and learn the worst. I approached it with trembling. So curious are the details of a dream that I found—as I expected—the bolt on the outer door wrenched off and hanging by a nail. I stepped into the disgusting place, full of anxiety as to what further horror I had to endure. The little lamp was still alight. The bedstead was on its edge as I left it, but the man was gone. There was a small patch of blood where his head had