An acute spasm of pain passed through me, and I was aware that the Swede
had hold of me in such a way that he hurt me abominably. It was the way he
caught at me in falling.
But it was the pain, he declared afterwards, that saved me; it caused me to
forget them and think of something else at the very instant when they were
about to find me. It concealed my mind from them at the moment of
discovery, yet just in time to evade their terrible seizing of me. He
himself, he says, actually swooned at the same moment, and that was what
saved him.
I only know that at a later date, how long or short is impossible to say, I
found myself scrambling up out of the slippery network of willow branches,
and saw my companion standing in front of me holding out a hand to assist
me. I stared at him in a dazed way, rubbing the arm he had twisted for me.
Nothing came to me to say, somehow.
"I lost consciousness for a moment or two," I heard him say. "That's what
saved me. It made me stop thinking about them."
"You nearly broke my arm in two," I said, uttering my only connected
thought at the moment. A numbness came over me.
"That's what saved you!" he replied. "Between us, we've managed to set them
off on a false tack somewhere. The humming has ceased. It's gone--for the
moment at any rate!"
A wave of hysterical laughter seized me again, and this time spread to my
friend too--great healing gusts of shaking laughter that brought a
tremendous sense of relief in their train.
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