Presently he turned.
"Physical fear is a very curious thing," he said in a voice unnecessarily loud.

"I've seen it take hold of men of proved courage and paralyse them.

It's just like an epileptic fit--beyond a man's control.

I've known a fellow--the most reckless, hare-brained daredevil you can imagine--to stand petrified with fear on the bank of a river, and let a wounded comrade drown before his eyes.

And he was a good swimmer too." "What happened to him ?" I asked.
He met my gaze for a moment, looked away, and then met it again--it seemed defiantly.
"What happened to him?
Well--" there was the tiniest possible pause--a pause that only an uneasy, suspicious repository of the abominable story of Vilboek's Farm could have noticed--"Well, as he stood there he got plugged--and that was the end of him.