So I stood, panting, and waited for the end.  I remember a blind groping in the dark, a wild hurly-burly of random blows, a sudden sharp pain in my right hand—­a groan, and I was standing with the swish of the rain about me, and the moaning of the wind in the woods beyond.

How long I remained thus I cannot tell, for I was as one in a dream, but the cool rain upon my face refreshed me, and the strong, clean wind in my nostrils was wonderfully grateful.  Presently, raising my arm stiffly, I brushed the wet hair from my eyes, and stared round me into the pitchy darkness, in quest of my opponent.

“Where are you?” said I at last, and this was the first word uttered during the struggle; “where are you?”

Receiving no answer, I advanced cautiously (for it was, as I have said, black dark), and so, presently, touched something yielding with my foot.

“Come—­get up!” said I, stooping to lay a hand upon him, “get up, I say.”  But he never moved; he was lying upon his face, and, as I raised his head, my fingers encountered a smooth, round stone, buried in the grass, and the touch of that stone thrilled me from head to foot with sudden dread.  Hastily I tore open waistcoat and shirt, and pressed nay hand above his heart.  In that one moment I lived an age of harrowing suspense, then breathed a sigh of relief, and, rising, took him beneath the arms and began to half drag, half carry him towards the cottage.

I had proceeded thus but some dozen yards or so when, during a momentary lull in the storm, I thought I heard a faint “Hallo,” and looking about, saw a twinkling light that hovered to and fro, coming and going, yet growing brighter each moment.  Setting down my burden, therefore, I hollowed my hands about my mouth, and shouted.

“This way!” I called; “this way!”

“Be that you, sir?” cried a man’s voice at no great distance.

“This way!” I called again, “this way!” The words seemed to reassure the fellow, for the light advanced once more, and as he came up, I made him out to be a postilion by his dress, and the light he carried was the lanthorn of a chaise.

“Why—­sir!” he began, looking me up and down, by the light of his lanthorn, “strike me lucky if I’d ha’ knowed ye! you looks as if —­oh, Lord!”

“What is it?” said I, wiping the rain from my eyes again.  The Postilion’s answer was to lower his lanthorn towards the face of him who lay on the ground between us, and point.  Now, looking where he pointed, I started suddenly backwards, and shivered, with a strange stirring of the flesh.

For I saw a pale face with a streak of blood upon the cheek —­there was blood upon my own; a face framed in lank hair, thick and black—­as was my own; a pale, aquiline face, with a prominent nose, and long, cleft chin—­even as my own.  So, as I stood looking down upon this face, my breath caught, and my flesh crept, for indeed, I might have been looking into a mirror—­the face was the face of myself.