‘Hi! One minute.’

The man stopped and stood motionless until Hamer came abreast of him. A lamp burned just over his head and revealed every feature. Silas Hamer caught his breath in involuntary surprise. The man possessed the most singularly beautiful head he had ever seen. He might have been any age; assuredly he was not a boy, yet youth was the most predominant characteristic—youth and vigour in passionate intensity!

Hamer found an odd difficulty in beginning his conversation.

‘Look here,’ he said awkwardly, ‘I want to know—what was that thing you were playing just now?’

The man smiled . . . With his smile the world seemed suddenly to leap into joyousness . . .

‘It was an old tune—a very old tune . . . Years old—centuries old.’

He spoke with an odd purity and distinctness of enunciation, giving equal value to each syllable. He was clearly not an Englishman, yet Hamer was puzzled as to his nationality.

‘You’re not English? Where do you come from?’

Again the broad joyful smile.

‘From over the sea, sir. I came—a long time ago—a very long time ago.’

‘You must have had a bad accident. Was it lately?’

‘Some time now, sir.’

‘Rough luck to lose both legs.’

‘It was well,’ said the man very calmly. He turned his eyes with a strange solemnity on his interlocutor. ‘They were evil.’

Hamer dropped a shilling in his hand and turned away. He was puzzled and vaguely disquieted. ‘They were evil!’ What a strange thing to say! Evidently an operation for some form of disease, but—how odd it had sounded.

Hamer went home thoughtful. He tried in vain to dismiss the incident from his mind. Lying in bed, with the first incipient sensation of drowsiness stealing over him, he heard a neighbouring clock strike one. One clear stroke and then silence—silence that was broken by a faint familiar sound . . . Recognition came leaping. Hamer felt his heart beating quickly. It was the man in the passageway playing, somewhere not far distant . . .

The notes came gladly, the slow turn with its joyful call, the same haunting little phrase . . . ‘It’s uncanny,’ murmured Hamer, ‘it’s uncanny. It’s got wings to it . . .’

Clearer and clearer, higher and higher—each wave rising above the last, and catching him up with it. This time he did not struggle, he let himself go . . . Up—up . . . The waves of sound were carrying him higher and higher . . . Triumphant and free, they swept on.

Higher and higher . . . They had passed the limits of human sound now, but they still continued—rising, ever rising . . . Would they reach the final goal, the full perfection of height?

Rising . . .

Something was pulling—pulling him downwards. Something big and heavy and insistent. It pulled remorselessly—pulled him back, and down . . . down . . .

He lay in bed gazing at the window opposite. Then, breathing heavily and painfully, he stretched an arm out of bed. The movement seemed curiously cumbrous to him. The softness of the bed was oppressive, oppressive too were the heavy curtains over the window that blocked out the light and air. The ceiling seemed to press down upon him. He felt stifled and choked. He moved slightly under the bed clothes, and the weight of his body seemed to him the most oppressive of all . . .