Upon the old man's being wheeled into this new chamber, all background smells of the city, the house, the people—in 1897 the modern passion for changing clothes and keeping sterile armpits still had a long way to develop—all common smells, I say, were suddenly wiped out for him, by the sharp tang of carbolic acid. A good deal of this disinfectant was being sprayed and swabbed about. Also the old man's keen ears informed him that his three caretakers were all donning extra clothing. Each was putting a voluminous garment over what he or she already wore.
After these preliminaries had been got through, there proved to be yet another door which must in its turn be unlocked and opened, another threshold to be bumped over on his cart. In this third room, a soft click brought out the unnatural radiance of electric light, perhaps from some kind of handheld torch. Its rays probed at the old man's blindfold and even faintly warmed his exposed hands. All this time he had kept on feigning to be unconscious, largely because in his damaged state he was unable to think of any stratagem more promising. And now, despite the steady olfactory roar of the carbolic, there came back, stronger than ever, the animal smell at which he had first wondered.
He could place it now: it was the stink of rodent. Rats, or a rat, but magnified, transformed, intensified. Despite a certain original flavor it was essential Rat, and therefore familiar and unmistakable to that old man, and even almost reassuring. He ought to be able to—to—
To do what? The terrible pain in his head went on, and it was still impossible to think. Impossible to try… he did not even know what effort he should try to make.
Almost touching his cart, there were more locks and bolts now being operated. These opened no ordinary door, but something that sounded all metal when part of it skreeked back, all metal and full of space as a skeleton.
"Be careful of the screen!" the woman warned. And next moment, the heartbeat and the breathing of a single large inhuman creature were almost within the old man's reach. Here was the radiant center of the rodent smell.
The prisoner's hands began to strain again at their steel restraints, uselessly though with more strength than any victimized old man should have been able to command. But no hunger or rage beat in the animal's heart, so he made his hands relax. Experience counseled waiting, though what experience in his blind past had been remotely like this one he could not guess. Still he felt sure that this was not the first time in his long life that he had been chained and blindfolded. And when the torture started, presently, they would find him no trembling virgin in that field of endeavor either.
Torture? All that came, in apparent anticlimax, was the opening of his clothing at the chest, followed by the pressure there, against his bare skin, of a smooth empty circle like the rim of a glass jar. Inside the circle, a sudden flea crawled on the old man's hide, a tiny timid creature almost frightened by this alien, white and nearly hairless world. Yes, the old man knew it was a flea. He had been for many years a soldier, long ago, and like many another warrior he had become an unwilling connoisseur of vermin. After a moment a second flea came onto his skin, and then by ones and twos additional reinforcements, until he could no longer count the nervous, jumping creatures confined within the circle of the jar. He disliked these creatures, and so he awed them with a great, voiceless, soundless shout, at which command they ceased to jump and huddled in abject obedience.
The glass-rim contact was maintained for several minutes, while the four people in the room were silent. Eventually the woman barked out an order, as if at the conclusion of some timed interval. At this, a thin plate of metal or glass was slid in beneath the glass rim, against the old man's chest and belly. Then cover, jar and fleas were adroitly withdrawn together.
Again locks clashed, and metal bars. In reverse order, doors were opened, the cart was wheeled, carbolic splashed, doors closed, et cetera, and in a few minutes the four human participants were all back in the same room in which the strange charade had started. The old man's blindfold was pulled off by Rough-voice, and this time the old man let his eyes stay open, thinking what the hell or something to that effect. But no one cared if he was wide awake or not. His three tormentors had already turned their backs on him and tramped out. Rough-voice went last, closing the door without padlocks behind him. Before the three began to talk among themselves again they were too many rooms away for the old man to understand a word.
He lay there thinking. To say that he was trying to think would be more accurate. He was still unable to cope with the pain and confusion in his head, the lasting damage of that most savage oaken blow.
Torture, he thought, by fleas. Tickled into trauma by the tripping of their tiny toes. Mangled by their fierce jaws—if he had let them bite. Absurd. Maniacal. But if the intention had not been torture, what? It had all been most deadly serious, in any case.
The blotch of daylight, faint though it was upon the ceiling just above the blinded window, was somehow oppressive to his injured brain. And now his weariness hung like a diver's weights upon his every fettered limb. He could not sleep upon that cart, nor truly rest, but did fall into a kind of trance.
When he came wide awake again it was still full daylight. Again feet were approaching his room's door, the one that had its locks upon the side away from him. With a great clatter it was pushed open, and Rough-voice tramped in, masked as before. His huge hands held a small metal tray bearing a slab of bread, tea steaming in a mug, a glass of water.
With the old man now watching openly, the tray was set down upon a peculiar kind of rest that his brawny keeper snapped up from the bed's right side. Then when the attendant turned a crank somewhere, his aged prisoner's forequarters were elevated, putting him nearly into a sitting position. Rough-voice then brought out a key, and presently one of the manacles restraining the old man's right arm clicked and let go. Now the prisoner could just reach the tray, and might have lifted food and drink from it up to his mouth. He snarled instead and lashed out with a backhanded blow of long-nailed fingers. The tray and its repulsive cargo went splash-and-scatter on the bare floor.
"Ar! Yer a rum cove, ain' cher?" Rough-voice, massive fists on his broad hips, displayed that almost good-humored appreciation not infrequently offered by strong and ruthless people to opposition that is at once spirited and hopelessly weak. "Go dry an' empty then, bein' as you likes it better so!" And with smiling eyes Rough-voice went out by the door where he had entered, not forgetting to re-imprison the old man's wrist.
Outside the room he could be heard squeaking a small, wheeled cart along, and entering one after another a pair of nearby rooms, in each of which his entry was followed by a dull clatter of utensils.
The old man, listening, decided that he shared his captivity with at least two other prisoners. Now that he made the effort, he thought that he could hear their faint and sickly breathing from their separate apartments. Not that he felt any the less alone for the discovery. Rough-voice moved on with his cart, and now, in yet another room, he paused to make report. "Number One, sir, 'e didn't tyke no water, even."
"Oh?" The responding voice was that of the skillful prober of skulls. "Does he show fever?"
"Not as he could notice. Didn't touch 'im."
"Quite right. How are the other two?"
"Both given up on shoutin'. Two's eatin, 'three's asleep."
"Very good. Try Number One again in an hour or so. He should eat and drink. And if he's acting strangely, we should have someone with him through the night. His case is not established yet."