His flash-
light picked out these objects, limned them sharply against the
blackness, then dropped them into obscurity again.
He tried to run faster. His impatience subdivided the distance into
yards and feet. Now he was approaching that boulder, now he was passing
it; now he was ten feet beyond, twenty, thirty. Perhaps his mother was
dying, alone save for stupid Nan Berry.
Now he was going down the hill past the white church. All that was
visible was its black spire set against a web of stars. He was making no
speed at all. He panted on. His heart hammered. His legs drummed with
Lilliputian paces. Now he was among the village stores, all utterly
black. At one point the echo of his feet chattered back at him, as if
some other futile runner strained amid vast spaces of blackness.
After a long time he found himself running up a residential street, and
presently, far ahead, he saw the glow of Dr. Jallup's porch light. Its
beam had the appearance of coming from a vast distance. When he reached
the place, he flung his breast against the top panel of the doctor's
fence and held on, exhausted.
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