Pagina 474 de 657

"How long I remained unconscious I cannot tell. It must have been

a very long time, for the moon had sunk, and a bright morning was

breaking when I came to myself. My clothes were all sodden with

dew, and my coat-sleeve was drenched with blood from my wounded

thumb. The smarting of it recalled in an instant all the

particulars of my night's adventure, and I sprang to my feet with

the feeling that I might hardly yet be safe from my pursuers. But

to my astonishment, when I came to look round me, neither house

nor garden were to be seen. I had been lying in an angle of the

hedge close by the high road, and just a little lower down was a

long building, which proved, upon my approaching it, to be the

very station at which I had arrived upon the previous night. Were

it not for the ugly wound upon my hand, all that had passed

during those dreadful hours might have been an evil dream.