Page:The further side of silence (IA furthersideofsil00clifiala).pdf/163

 After a day or two he became wildly delirious, and Talib then witnessed a terrible sight. A raving maniac in a well-ordered asylum, where padded walls and careful tendance do much to save the afflicted body from the blind fury of the disordered brain, is an appalling thing to see; but in the vile cage in which this wretched creature was confined there was nothing to restrain the violence he was practising upon himself. With the strength of madness he dashed his head and body relentlessly against the unyielding walls of his cell. He fell back crushed and bleeding, foaming at the mouth with a bloody froth, and making beast noises in his throat. The pĕr-tanda, attracted by the noise, rested his back against the surrounding wall and rocked to and fro, convulsed with laughter, each brutal jest that he uttered being greeted with obsequious titters from the caged animals around him.

But the madman was oblivious of him and of all things. Once more, as the frenzy took him, shaking him as a terrier shakes a rat, he flung himself at the bars, and after another fearful paroxysm, fell back inert upon the floor. For hours he lay there exhausted, but wildly restless; too spent to struggle, and too demented and tortured to be still. He moaned, he groaned, he raved and cursed with vile and filthy words, bit and snapped like a dog in its madness, strove to gnaw the loathsome rags which had long used to cover his nakedness, and then again was still, save for the incessant rolling of his head, and the wilder motion of his eyes, which blazed with