“At the bottom of the steps she stands waiting, with a smile of ineffable joy, an attitude of matchless grace and dignity. [...] As he is about to clasp her he feels a stunning blow upon the back of the neck; a blinding white light blazes all about him with a sound like a the shock of a cannon - then all is darkness and silence!”
“As Peyton Fahrquhar fell straight downward through the bridge he lost consciousness and was as one already dead. From this state he was awakened - ages later, it seemed to him - by a sharp pressure upon his throat, followed by a sense of suffocation.”