Agony ran all through me as it does through the limbs of one who is being brought back from death by drowning.

After this something warm was poured down my throat, and I went to sleep.
When I awoke again it was to find myself in a large room that I did not know.

I was lying on a bed, and by the light of sunrise which streamed through the window-places I saw the three others, my son Roderick, Orme and Higgs lying on the other beds, but they were still asleep.
Abati servants entered the room bringing food, a kind of rough soup with pieces of meat in it of which they gave me a portion in a wooden bowl that I devoured greedily.

Also they shook my companions until they awoke and almost automatically ate up the contents of similar bowls, after which they went to sleep again, as I did, thanking heaven that we were all still alive.
Every few hours I had a vision of these men entering with the bowls of soup or porridge, until at last life and reason came back to me in earnest, and I saw Higgs sitting up on the bed opposite and staring at me.
"I say, old fellow," he said, "are we alive, or is this Hades ?" "Can't be Hades," I answered, "because there are Abati here." "Quite right," he replied.

"If the Abati go anywhere, it's to hell, where they haven't whitewashed walls and four-post beds.