And outwards flowed this invisible, unmurmuring tide, devouring his body, till the sweat was upon his face and his strained hands and trembling fingers were cold like ice, and his knees fluttered as the knees of palsied age, and his teeth clicked, row against row, and his hairs stirred, and his head, under its thatch, tingled and burned and throbbed.
Every faculty, too, seemed to stand straight up like a sentinel at its post, staring into dust clouds through which rode an approaching enemy.
Eyes watched, ears listened, brain was hideously alert.

The whole body kept itself tense, stiff, wary.

For Valentine had a secret conviction at this moment that he was about to be attacked.

By what?
He was hardly master of himself enough to wonder.

His thoughts no longer ran free.
They crept like paralyzed things about his mind, and that despite the unnatural vitality of his brain.