Колесо крутится. Леди исчезает / The Wheel Spins. The Lady Vanishe

She felt sure that these ring women had combined to rob her when she was helpless and at their mercy. When she sprang from the bench they pulled her down again.

The blood rushed to her head and she resisted them fiercely. As she struggled she was conscious of a whirl of confusion – of throbbing pain, rising voices, and lights flashing before her eyes. There were breathless panting noises, as an undercurrent to a strange rushing sound, as though an imprisoned fountain had suddenly burst through the ground.

In spite of her efforts, the woman in the black pinafore dragged her down again, while a fat girl, in a bursting bodice, held a glass to her lips.

It made her cough and gasp, until her head seemed to be swelling with pain. Terrified by this threat of another attack, she relaxed in helpless misery. Her instinct warned her that, if she grew excited, at any moment, the walls might rock – like the snow-mountains – as a prelude to total extinction.

Next time she might not wake up. Besides, she dared not risk being ill in the village, alone, and so far away from her friends. If she returned to the hotel she could enlist the financial help of the English visitors, while, doubtless, another passport could be procured; but it meant delay.

In addition, these people were all strangers to her, whose holiday was nearly ended. In another day they would be gone, while she might be stranded there, indefinitely, exposed to indifference, and even neglect.

“I mustn’t be ill,” thought Iris. “I must get away at once, while there is still time.”

She felt sure that, if she could board the train, the mere knowledge that she was rolling, mile by mile, back to civilisation, would brace her to hold out until she reached some familiar place. She thought of Basle on the milky jade Rhine, with its excellent hotels where English was spoken and where she could be ill, intelligibly, and with dignity.

Everything hung upon the catching of this train. The issue at stake made her suddenly desperate to find her bag. She was struggling to rise again, when she became conscious that some one was trying to establish contact with her.

It was an old man in a dirty blouse, with a gnarled elfin face – brown and lined as the scar on a tree-trunk, from which a branch had been lopped.