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On the fourth day Sime was able to drink water freely, and to eat the food they placed into his mouth, a fact which the medical officer noted. The torture was wearing itself out. Sime's body was emaciated, stringy, burnt black. But his extraordinary toughness was weathering conditions that would kill most men. Balta shook his head in wonderment when this was reported to him.
Something of the distinction here discussed can be seen by comparing Mr Sime's drawings with the pictures of the mad painter Wirtz, whose abominable gallery at Brussels is a chamber of unimaginative horrors.
From the concealment of a doorway an officer with a squad of soldiers came up quickly. "You are under arrest!" said the officer, placing, his hand on Sime's shoulder, while the soldiers rested their hands on their neuro-pistols. "Would it be asking too much to inquire on what charge?" Sime asked politely. "Military arrests do not require the filing of charges," the officer explained stiffly.
"Why, you dirty, double-crossing hound!" Sime's exasperation knew no bounds. For an instant he had believed that Murray was enacting a little side-play in the pursuit of a suddenly conceived plan. But he looked so obviously hangdog so guiltily defiant.... Crack!
Nevertheless, so strong was Sime's intuition, he leveled his neuro-pistol at the cabinet and approached. With a sweep of his muscular arm he swung it open and gasped! The sight that greeted him was enough to make any man gasp, even one less young and impressionable than Sime. In all of his twenty-five years he had not seen a woman so lovely.
Side by side they stood, mantled about in such a darkness as cannot be described; in such a silence as dwellers in the busy world cannot conceive; in such an atmosphere of horror that only a man morally and physically brave could have retained his composure. Dr. Cairn bent to Sime's ear. "We must have the light for the ascent," he whispered.
As the ship was about to disappear over the ragged northern horizon, Sime's bleared eyes saw, or he thought they saw, a human figure silhouetted against the pitiless sky. It was a tiny-seeming figure at that distance, but it was clear-cut in the rare atmosphere. Then it plunged from sight. "Somebody taken for a ride," he muttered, half grateful for the brief distraction from his own misery.
"Listen, old man," Sime said in a low voice, "out in the corridor " But Murray squeezed his hand warningly, pulled him to the floor. "Might as well get some sleep," the old man said in ordinary tones. "Plenty cool here. Let's lie together." He kept his hold on Sime's wrist, and, by alternately squeezing and releasing, began to talk in a silent telegraphic code.
Sime's fist struck Murray's solid jaw, scraping the skin off his knuckles, but Murray swayed to the blow, sapping its force, and came in to clinch. They rolled on the floor. Murray twisted Sime's head painfully, bit his ear. But in the next split second he was whispering: "Keep your head, Sime. Can't you see I'm stringing him? Take that!" And he planted a vicious short hook to Sime's midriff.
A man with a caduceus on his blouse collar was holding his wrist, feeling his pulse. He seemed to be a medical officer of the Martian army. His smooth, coral face was serious as he prodded Sime's shriveled tongue. "Water, quick!" he snapped, "or he's done for." His head was tipped back and water poured into his mouth, but Sime could not swallow.
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