.

Tommy.
I lay still a while, on my back as I had fallen, and beneath the shield-like defence which Yva had given to me.

Notwithstanding the fire-resisting, metalised stuff of which it was made, I noted that it was twisted and almost burnt through.

Doubtless the stored-up electricity or earth magnetism, or whatever it may have been that had leapt out of that hole, being diffused by the resistance with which it was met, had grazed me with its outer edge, and had it not been for the shield and cloak, I also should have been burned up.

I wished, oh! how I wished that it had been so.