It is painful even to recollect the plight in which I was when I was stopped,—­for stopped I was, as shortly and as sharply, as the beast of burden, with a bridle in its mouth, whose driver puts a period to his career.  I was wet,—­intermittent gusts of rain were borne on the scurrying wind; in spite of the pace at which I had been brought, I was chilled to the bone; and—­worst of all!—­my mud-stained feet, all cut and bleeding, were so painful—­for, unfortunately, I was still susceptible enough to pain—­that it was agony to have them come into contact with the cold and the slime of the hard, unyielding pavement.

I had been stopped on the opposite side of the square,—­that nearest to the hospital; in front of a house which struck me as being somewhat smaller than the rest.  It was a house with a portico; about the pillars of this portico was trelliswork, and on the trelliswork was trained some climbing plant.  As I stood, shivering, wondering what would happen next, some strange impulse mastered me, and, immediately, to my own unbounded amazement, I found myself scrambling up the trellis towards the verandah above.  I am no gymnast, either by nature or by education; I doubt whether, previously, I had ever attempted to climb anything more difficult than a step ladder.  The result was, that, though the impulse might be given me, the skill could not, and I had only ascended a yard or so when, losing my footing, I came slithering down upon my back.  Bruised and shaken though I was, I was not allowed to inquire into my injuries.  In a moment I was on my feet again, and again I was impelled to climb,—­only, however, again to come to grief.  This time the demon, or whatever it was, that had entered into me, seeming to appreciate the impossibility of getting me to the top of that verandah, directed me to try another way.  I mounted the steps leading to the front door, got on to the low parapet which was at one side, thence on to the sill of the adjacent window,—­had I slipped then I should have fallen a sheer descent of at least twenty feet to the bottom of the deep area down below.  But the sill was broad, and—­if it is proper to use such language in connection with a transaction of the sort in which I was engaged—­fortune favoured me.  I did not fall.  In my clenched fist I had a stone.  With this I struck the pane of glass, as with a hammer.  Through the hole which resulted, I could just insert my hand, and reach the latch within.  In another minute the sash was raised, and I was in the house,—­I had committed burglary.

As I look back and reflect upon the audacity of the whole proceeding, even now I tremble.  Hapless slave of another’s will although in very truth I was, I cannot repeat too often that I realised to the full just what it was that I was being compelled to do—­a fact which was very far from rendering my situation less distressful!—­and every detail of my involuntary actions was projected upon my brain in a series of pictures, whose clear-cut