As his right hand was thus occupied, a pair of great slimy hands came out of the darkness, hands clearly belonging to a man of gigantic stature, and seized him by the back of the head.

They forced him down, down in the suffocating darkness, a brutal image of destiny.

But the Major's head, though upside down, was perfectly clear and intellectual.

He gave quietly under the pressure until he had slid down almost to his hands and knees.

Then finding the knees of the invisible monster within a foot of him, he simply put out one of his long, bony, and skilful hands, and gripping the leg by a muscle pulled it off the ground and laid the huge living man, with a crash, along the floor.