To do this, he had to use an amount of strength which was, he knew, far beyond him in his normal state.

As it was, it seemed easy enough; everything yielded before his touch.

Then he became conscious that somehow--how, he never could remember--the chest was open.
He unlocked his door, and, taking the chest on his shoulder, carried it up to the turret-room, the door of which also he unlocked.

Even at the time he was amazed at his own strength, and wondered whence it had come.
His mind, lost in conjecture, was too far off to realise more immediate things.

He knew that the chest was enormously heavy.