Suddenly my pain ceased, and I began to associate the pounding with an external rather than internal force. The falling had ceased also, giving place to a sensation of uneasy, temporary rest;
and when I listened closely, I fancied the pounding was that of the vast, inscrutable sea as its sinister, colossal breakers lacerated some desolate shore after a storm of titanic magnitude. Then I opened my eyes.
For a moment my surroundings seemed confused, like a projected image hopelessly out of focus, but gradually I realized my solitary presence in a strange and beautiful room lighted by many windows.
Of the exact nature of the apartment I could form no idea, for my thoughts were still far from settled;
but I noticed vary-coloured rugs and draperies, elaborately fashioned tables, chairs, ottomans, and divans, and delicate vases and ornaments which conveyed a suggestion of the exotic without being actually alien.
These things I noticed, yet they were not long uppermost in my mind.
Slowly but inexorably crawling upon my consciousness, and rising above...
...every other impression, came a dizzying fear of the unknown;
a fear all the greater because I could not analyse it, and seeming to concern a stealthily approaching menace - not death...
Presently I realized that the direct symbol and excitant of my fear was the hideous pounding whose incessant reverberations throbbed maddeningly against my exhausted brain.
It seemed to come from a point outside and below the edifice in which I stood, and to associate itself with the most terrifying mental images.
I felt that some horrible scene or object lurked beyond the silk-hung walls, and shrank from glancing through the arched, latticed windows that opened so bewilderingly on every hand.
Perceiving shutters attached to these windows, I closed them all...