Another quarter of an hour and
Harry was free.
"Gad, that feels good!" he exclaimed, rising to his feet. "Here,
Paul; where's the stone?"
I handed it to him and he knelt down and began sawing away at my
feet.
What followed happened so quickly that we were hardly aware that
it had begun when it was already finished.
A quick, pattering rush of many feet warned us, but not in time.
Hurtling, leaping bodies came at us headlong through the air and
crushed us to the ground, buried beneath them, gasping for
breath; there must have been scores of them. Resistance was
impossible; we were overwhelmed.
I heard Harry give a despairing cry, and the scuffle followed; I
myself was utterly helpless, for the thongs which bound my ankles
had not been cut through. Not a sound came from our assailants
save their heavy, labored breathing.
I remember that, even while they were sitting on my head and
chest and body, I noted their silence with a sort of impersonal
curiosity and wondered if they were, after all, human. Nor were
they unnecessarily violent; they merely subdued us, rebound our
wrists and ankles more tightly than before, and departed.
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