In one corner there were men singing in a mad
frenzy, in another a few danced in their fetters, or rather tried to
dance; in front of Trench Ibrahim maintained his guard; and beside
Trench there lay in the House of Stone, in the town beyond the world, a
man who one night had sailed out of Dublin Bay, past the riding lanterns
of the yachts, and had seen Bray, that fairyland of lights, dwindle to a
golden blot. To think of the sea and the salt wind, the sparkle of light
as the water split at the ship's bows, the illuminated deck, perhaps the
sound of a bell telling the hour, and the cool dim night about and
above, so wrought upon Trench that, practical unimaginative creature as
he was, for very yearning he could have wept. But the stranger at his
side began to speak again.
"It is funny that those three faces were always the same ... the man in
the tent with the lancet in his hand, and the man in the back room off
Piccadilly ... and mine. Funny and not quite right. No, I don't think
that was quite right either. They get quite big, too, just when you are
going to sleep in the dark--quite big, and they come very close to you
and won't go away ... they rather frighten one.
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